


Swimming and F*cking

by philcollins



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Dark, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, France - Freeform, Fucked Up, NSFW, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Provence, Recreational Drug Use, Sad, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Summer, Sunscreen, Swimming Pool, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Voyeurism, ben is an author, daddy issues abound, not as lighthearted as the summary makes it seem, rey is a cocktease, rey is a nymphet, rey is naked a lot, swimming pool AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-04-29 20:37:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14480742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philcollins/pseuds/philcollins
Summary: Ben Solo is a sci-fi author (pen name Kylo Ren) who decamps to his father's secret villa in Provence to work on his new book. His desire for peace and quiet is thwarted by the unexpected arrival of Rey, an intriguing stranger who hates wearing clothes. The only thing she hates more, however, is Ben Solo.Turns out, Han Solo used to shag Rey's mom and he was Rey's de-facto father for a while. This is news to Ben. But is she REALLY Ben's sister? Is it totally messed up and really really bad that he really really wants to have sex with her? Yes.The summer's heating up in a very bad way.





	1. The Villa

 

The taxi pulls up in front of the house, gravel crunching under the tires, and Ben can’t help but stare out the car window. The yellowy-beige stone house is smaller than he expected for something termed a “villa”, but it’s plenty big enough for him, that’s for sure, and looks older than he expected. The doors and shutters are a pale turquoise blue and the terracotta roof tiles are a faded rusty red, bleached from years and years under the hot Provençal sun. The trees and shrubs and house are well-tended – there’s a caretaker who looks after it all, Ben knows, but who the hell ever uses this house anyway?

 

Ben had never even _heard_ about it until his father told him two months ago.

 

It was late June and he’d met his father in some greasy barbecue place in Queens for lunch – his father’s idea. “You look stressed out, kid,” Han had commented, gnawing on a rib. “More stressed out than usual, I mean. What’s up?”

 

He’d grimaced and thought about not answering – he doesn’t do _sharing_. Especially not with his father. But Han would’ve just picked and picked and picked at him until he’d finally exploded and told him something. “Nothing. Just having trouble with my book right now.”

 

“Kylo Ren’s next best seller, yes! What’s it called again?”

 

“Star Warfare Episode IX: Return of the Dragonborn.”

 

His father had laughed out loud, the bastard. “How could I forget?” his father laughed and Ben had rolled his eyes, irritated. “Writer’s block, huh?”

 

“No, not writer’s block. It’s complicated, you wouldn’t understand.”

 

Han had rolled his eyes and smiled wryly, saying, “No, of course I wouldn’t.” He’d dipped some of his sweet potato fries into his mango chutney – _fucking gross_ – and jammed them in his mouth and said with his mouth full, “You should get out of the city for the summer, Benny. Go to the house in Provence, get a change of scenery.”

 

It was said off-handedly and Ben had seen the moment his father had realized what he’d just said, his mouth stilling – like he’d just spilled the beans on something. Which, it turned out, he had.

 

A villa with a vineyard in France. That Han had never mentioned to him or his mother before. Which Han had owned for the last fifteen years. And never mentioned to him or his mother before. It’s true, his father basically came and went as he pleased, away on business and adventures and whatever else. Always had done since Ben was a boy. There was probably a lot he didn’t know about his father, in truth. So a secret villa in Provence wasn’t necessarily a surprise, per se, not exactly.

 

But still _\- what the actual fuck_.

 

His mother hadn’t wanted to know anything about the house when Ben told her about it. She seemed to want to pretend it didn’t exist. Her usual response to Han Solo’s mischief.

 

Ben hadn’t spoken to his father for two months after that little revelation.

 

But after a very long, very hot, very humid, and very unproductive summer, his book amounting to nothing more than a handful of rambling, useless scribbles in his spiral-bound notebook, he was tearing out his hair, driven crazy by the heat and frustration. He’d rung up his father and called him an asshole and demanded the keys to the house.

 

“I don’t have the keys, they’re with the caretaker in Vacqueyras. When do you want to go? I’ll call him and have him meet you there.”

 

He’d been on a plane to France two days later.

 

He’d spent two days in Paris just wandering around because he hadn’t been there since he was a teenager. He’d once dreamed of living in Paris and writing great literature and being hailed as the Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald of the new millennium. That hadn’t happened. He’d gotten absolutely nowhere with any of his literary fiction, but a sci-fi fantasy he banged out the winter after grad school, a stupid pen name slapped on the title page for good measure, had got bought up surprisingly fast. After that, the publisher had thrown piles of money at him for sequels and sequels and sequels. And he hadn’t tried to write any literary fiction since.

 

But Paris still calls to him. He still wants to be Ernest Hemingway. And that’s why he only spent two days there – because he knows he’ll never be Ernest Hemingway. No, he’s “Kylo Ren” now, bashing out cheap and tawdry sci-fi paperbacks people buy in an airport shop, read on the plane, and leave behind in their hotel room when they’re done with it.

 

He knows he has no right to complain – he makes money writing and is well-known enough, albeit under a fake name, and successful enough and he’s made a good life for himself. He’s lucky, he knows.

 

So he left Paris, got a train to Orange, and got a taxi here. And now, in front of his father’s secret villa, the taxi driver says something in French, which Ben doesn’t speak. But he thinks he gets the gist – the driver wants his money and wants to go.

 

He pays up and the driver heads on down the long drive to the main road to town. There’s no other car here but there is an old three-wheeled bicycle with a cart hitched to the back, a toolbox and gardening stuff in the cart. Must be the caretaker’s. So he knocks on the front door a couple times before remembering he’s not in New York anymore and tries the handle. Yep, open.

 

He finds himself in a dim hallway, a staircase at the end of it, doorways leading left and right. It’s hot outside but a bit cooler in here, though he doesn’t think there’s any air conditioning. He leaves his suitcase in the hall and goes right, finds himself in a dim dining room, the window shutters closed against the sun. It’s not a fancy or stylish room, not like his mother’s dining room on East 83rd Street. But it’s totally his father. Old, simple, mismatched antique furniture like you’d find at estate sales and flea markets that all sorta just _works_.

 

The dining room connects to the kitchen – very spacious, more simple old furniture, a massive range in bright blue enamel. A couple sets of open French doors (or maybe just “doors” here?) lead out back. Through the doors, he can see an elderly man with a watering can, watering potted flowers. That must be the caretaker.

 

He steps outside onto a stone patio with lounge chairs and a picnic table, shaded by leafy trees he doesn’t know the name of, and beyond the patio... It’s incredible. Steps lead down to a lower patio with a sparkling blue in-ground swimming pool and a stone deck. And further, sloping away for what seems like miles, are rows and rows and rows of leafy grape vines. And beyond that, lush green fields and rolling blue hills.

 

His father is such a fucking asshole.

 

“Monsieur Solo?” the elderly man asks, putting his watering can down and looking him over with a happy smile.

 

“Ben,” he corrects, nodding.

 

Again, Ben doesn’t speak French and thus doesn’t understand the flood of words the elderly man rattles off next, excitedly, but he thinks the caretaker is glad to meet him and he thinks the caretaker’s name is Monsieur Leclere.

 

Monsieur Leclere shows him the rest of the house. The big, comfortable, homey living room with a vaulted ceiling and a fireplace. The bathrooms and the linen cupboard. The bedrooms upstairs with sloping ceilings and exposed beams. The bigger room has a desk already situated in front of a floor-to-ceiling casement window with a view of the swimming pool and vineyard and hills. His room, then.

 

The pool looks inviting – a swim sounds real good. But...the bed looks comfy and even more inviting. It’s been a long day getting here and he could use a nap.

 

Leclere leaves him with a set of keys to all the doors, including a garage where Leclere lifts a tarp and shows him an old motorbike. It’s useless to Ben – he has no idea how to operate a motorcycle. He’s never driven a car, either. It’s been taxis and towncars and the subway and sometimes a bike his whole life.

 

But after Leclere leaves, Ben realizes there’s no food in the house. He contemplates figuring out how to start the motorbike and drive it to town but then imagines dying in a ditch. He doesn’t find a bicycle anywhere. He could walk to town but it’s quite far and it’d be pitch dark by the time he started back. He’ll figure out food tomorrow morning. And find a bike. Right now he needs a nap.

 

He carries his suitcase upstairs. He finds a clean sheet and pillowcase in the cupboard and quickly makes up his bed. He strips down to his boxer briefs and flops down on the mattress, exhausted. He’ll swim later.

 

***

 

It’s dark when he wakes. He checks his phone – it’s pretty late, he’s slept longer than he thought he would. He gets up, needing to piss, and takes a glance out the window. The underwater lights are on in the pool – they must be on a timer. The water glows, turquoise and alluring. Maybe he’ll have that swim after all.

 

He turns away, about to find the bathroom, when he hears it – a splash in the pool. He turns back to the window. _Fucking hell_ , there’s someone in the pool, some trespasser. He leans on the window frame, leaning out to see better. It’s a little far – and he’s kind of near-sighted – but it’s unmistakably a woman. A naked woman. Christ almighty.

 

He stares, trying to figure out what to do, watching the trespassing skinny-dipper float on her back. He can’t see too much detail – she looks quite slender, her hair long and floating out around her head. She probably thinks no one is here; the house likely sits empty most of the time – he assumes. God only knows.

 

Well there’s nothing for it. He leans a little further out the window and shouts down, “Excuse me! Ma’am! You need to go now!”

 

But the woman doesn’t react, just keeps floating peacefully. The pool is not that close to the house and her head is mostly submerged – she probably can’t hear him with the water in her ears. He groans. He’s gonna have to go down there.

 

He pulls on his jeans and his t-shirt so he doesn’t look like some psycho rapist creep. He doesn’t want to scare the lady _too_ much.

 

***

 

The lights are on downstairs. Like, all of them. He’s pretty sure they weren’t on this afternoon. And there’s a big suitcase and a big duffle bag sitting in the hallway. And there’s a bag of groceries on the kitchen table. Someone’s been _in_ the house, clearly – the skinny-dipper. Is she, like, renting it out or something? Leave it to his goddamn father to forget to mention he listed on Airbnb.

 

This is a problem. He sure as hell doesn’t want some stranger staying here doing god knows what, partying or whatever it is Airbnb people do, while he’s trying to fucking write.

 

He steps outside, the stone patio under his bare feet still warm from the hot day. From the top of the steps heading down to the pool, he can see her more clearly, sort of. Her body looks good under the water, though a bit distorted. He can see her breasts peeking out, round and small and pink-tipped. Her face is angular and lovely. She presents an undeniably sexy picture and his body likes it. But she looks young. It’s hard to tell how young she might be. And that’s making him decidedly uncomfortable.

 

He calls out again. “Miss! Hello, miss!” This time she does hear him and she jerks in the water, startled, her body sinking and twisting so she can look his way. He raises his hand a little in greeting, still trying not to scare her too much.

 

“What the fuck!” she screams shrilly. “Get out! Get out of my house!”

 

He raises his other hand, too, trying harder to be nonthreatening. “I think there’s a misunderstanding—“

 

“ _Get out!_ ” she shouts fiercely, her voice dropping an octave. He catches an accent – British. She’s swimming to the edge of the pool and he sees a small pile of clothes there, a mobile phone with them. “I’m calling the police, you fucking pervert!”

 

“Miss, miss, this is my house.”

 

She grips the side of the pool, hiding her nakedness, and reaches out, grabbing up her phone. “I’m calling the police right fucking now.”

 

“This is _my_ house,” he repeats. “If you’ve rented it or whatever, I’ll have your money refunded. But you can’t stay here.”

 

She’s staring at him, phone still in her hand. But she hasn’t started dialing. “I didn’t _rent_ it. This is my father’s house.”

 

Ben stares at her, everything suddenly feeling very far away.

 

“What, did he rent it to you or something? He doesn’t usually do that. He keeps it open for his friends. And me.”

 

“Your...father,” he croaks out.

 

“Yeah. Do you know him?”

 

“Han Solo.” He can feel his blood pressure climbing.

 

“Yes...” she draws out, like it was already obvious whom they were talking about. She squints at him. “Who are you?”

 

“His son.” Blood thumps in his ears.

 

The phone drops from her hand, clattering on the stone deck. “Ohhhh shit.” She’s gone a bit pale, obvious even in the strange, dim light. “You’re Ben Solo.”

 

TBC


	2. NY-LON

She’s staring at him from the pool. He’s staring back, his head spinning. “You know who I am?” he croaks.

 

“Yeah. I do.”

 

“Well who the hell are _you_?”

 

“I’m Rey.” As if that answers the question. “You haven’t heard of me.” It’s not a question.

 

“Can you tell me what the hell is going on, please?”

 

She sighs and pushes herself up out of the pool. He somehow forgot she was naked and gets the briefest glimpse of her tits before he can turn away. _Fuck_ – she might be his sister, his half-sister, he can’t look at her fucking tits!

 

He hears water dripping onto the stone pool deck and the rustle of clothes – she’s dressing. He hopes. He hears her bare feet on the steps as she approaches and then she storms past – dressed, thank Christ. “I need alcohol for this conversation,” she mutters.

 

He follows, asking, “Are you even old enough to drink?”

 

“I’m twenty. In case you’re worried.”

 

He rolls his eyes and tries not to feel caught. “I’m not _worried_.” But he can’t help but be a little relieved he wasn’t ogling a damn teenager or jailbait.

 

He follows her inside, into the brightly-lit kitchen. She drops her phone and a crumpled bright pink thing on the table and digs in the sack of groceries. The bright pink thing – it’s her lacy bra and panties. Jesus.

 

She grabs a few things from the grocery sack and sticks them in the fridge. Grabs a bottle of vodka and sticks that in the freezer. Grabs a _second_ bottle of vodka, which she cracks open. There’s ice in the freezer and she dumps some in a glass. She glances over her shoulder at him. “You want one?”

 

He’d better. He has a feeling he’ll need it. He nods.

 

She makes them each a vodka and sets his on the table, plopping down in a chair and taking a long sip of her own, her wet hair dripping on the tiles. He sits at the other end of the table and gulps his. She’s eyeing him, like she’s waiting for him to start this conversation. As if he knows anything!

 

He’s uncomfortable under her steady gaze and he’s uncomfortable because even though she’s dressed, it’s only _technically_. Her loose, oversized top has an absurdly wide neck and the shirt hangs off her lean, freckled shoulders in an alarming way, being held up by the dampness of her skin alone, it seems. And the soft white cotton is so thin he can basically see right through it anyway. And obviously he knows she’s not wearing panties under her short denim skirt. Her legs are long and smooth and her toenails are painted the same bright pink as her underwear. She’s absolutely terrifying. He takes another long gulp of his drink.

 

“Han Solo isn’t my biological father, just so you know,” she begins.

 

Something inside him unclenches a bit, relieved. For half a second.

 

“He started shagging my mother when I was eleven or twelve. He’d live with us when he was in London, but he, y’know, came and went. Back and forth. To New York.”

 

His insides have clenched up again, painful, his blood pressure up again. He shoves his hands into his long hair and pulls hard, overwhelmed, feeling sick.

 

Back and forth to New York. Bouncing back and forth between him and his mother and this girl and her mother. His father was cheating on his mother. For a _while_ , it would seem. Fucking fucking _bastard_.

 

He shouldn’t be so shocked, he supposes. The secret villa, the frequent absences, the constant disappointment. He should’ve _known_. It should’ve been obvious. But he just assumed his parents couldn’t get along. So, no, he didn’t know. And being confronted with the truth of it just _hurts_.

 

God, does his mother know? Oh Jesus. She might. She might.

 

Worse, _far_ worse, is the knowledge that his father was keeping a second family in London. Not just a fling. A family.

 

“He and my mum broke up when I was about seventeen, but we keep in touch and stuff. He sends me money sometimes. Birthday presents, Christmas presents. Lets me use this house whenever I want, obviously. But I haven’t actually seen him since he stopped seeing my mum.”

 

She says it all very matter-of-factly but betrays herself right there at the very end when she looks down and frowns. Yeah, his father hurt this girl. Abandoned her. That’s entirely familiar.

 

It makes him angry. Which makes him even angrier because he doesn’t want to _sympathize_ with this girl, the daughter of his father’s piece-on-the-side. He doesn’t want to feel sorry or sad for her.

 

He squeezes his hand around his cold glass, wanting to shatter it, wanting to crush his traitorous feelings to dust.

 

“I mean, I always knew he was married. I knew he had a family. I heard him talking about a ‘Ben’ once and I knew that must be...well, _you_. But honestly, I didn’t think about any of that too much. When he was with us, he was with _us_. That’s all I cared about.” She takes a long drink, finishing her vodka. “I knew you were out there somewhere. I just never thought you’d be here. In the middle of the night.”

 

She chuckles. But nothing about any of this is funny.

 

He stands up. “Well it’s late. So you can stay here tonight. But tomorrow you have to go.”

 

She looks up at him, her mouth falling open. Then it snaps shut and her greenish-hazel eyes _burn_.

 

“You can’t stay,” he reiterates. “I’m here to work.”

 

She slams her empty glass down on the table, making the ice cubes jump and rattle. “ _Fuck you_. This is _my_ house.”

 

“No it isn’t, it’s my father’s house—“

 

“And he lets me use it!”

 

“ _My_ father,” he emphasizes coldly.

 

She glares at him, her mouth twisted in disgust. “You’re an asshole.”

 

He knows that.

 

He walks out of the room without another word.

 

He knows he’s taking his fury out on this innocent girl, and the truth is, his first instinct is to leave here, go back to New York, and punch his father in the face several times.

 

But his second instinct is far more selfish, far more possessive, irrationally so. She’s _not_ Han Solo’s child, _he_ is. And he’s not going to just let this strange girl have what’s _his_. So he’s not leaving. She’ll have to.

 

***

 

Twenty minutes later, his bedroom door bangs open and he jerks around under his sheet, startled. He wasn’t asleep – who could sleep? She’s standing in the doorway with her luggage.

 

“This is my room,” she says. He sees her eyes wander down to his bare chest.

 

He just stares at her, silent. He’d like to see her try to take it.

 

“Asshole,” she spits out and storms away, dragging her luggage down to the other bedroom at the end of the hall. After a moment, that door slams shut, rattling the walls all the way down here. He grinds his teeth and gets out of bed, shutting his door, resisting the urge to slam it. He can imagine the rest of the night turning into a door-slamming competition.

 

All he wants to do is sleep and never see that girl again. He just wants to have peace and quiet here so he can fucking work.

 

***

 

It’s bright outside and hot when he wakes. He lies in bed for a while, just listening. He doesn’t hear anything. No splashing in the pool, no doors slamming, no water running or toilet flushing, no footsteps in the hall, no music or TV. Nothing but the breeze in the trees.

 

She’s gone. Thank Christ.

 

He tries to ignore the shades of guilt tainting his victory.

 

He gets out of bed and shuffles downstairs in his underwear, scratching his balls. Only when he shuffles into the kitchen, yawning, does he remember he doesn’t have any food. Unlikely she’s left any--

 

She’s there. Leaning against the counter. Naked. Again. Drinking coffee. She’s turned away and he sees her slim waist and her perfect, round ass and her smooth back. He spins on his heel, cursing loudly.

 

“There’s coffee if you want it,” she says behind him.

 

“Why are you still here?” he growls.

 

“Where else would I be?” she asks innocently.

 

“I told you. You can’t stay here.”

 

“Yeah, I gave that some thought. I’m not leaving.”

 

He fumes, searching for a response that doesn’t sound entirely bratty.

 

“Why should I leave?” she goes on pensively, sounding like she’s in the fucking debate club, about to begin her opening five minutes. “I’ve been coming here since I was twelve years old. I spent every school summer holiday here since year seven. I love this place. It’s my home. It feels more like my home than London. But I know that doesn’t mean a damn thing to you. And I know exactly what you’re thinking. You’re Han’s _real_ child and so you have more right to be here than I do.”

 

He clenches his jaw tightly, feeling transparent.

 

She continues. “I get it. I do. You’re hurt and you’re angry. Maybe you’re even jealous of me. But don’t you think I’m jealous of you? Don’t you think I’ve been jealous of you for _years_? Don’t you think I’m hurt and angry? Honestly, I’ve sort of hated you from afar all these years, Ben Solo.”

 

She sighs, like it’s costing her to say these things. It’s costing him to hear them.

 

“No, he’s not my biological father. But he’s the only dad I’ve ever known. And he lets me stay here. So I’m staying.”

 

He’s silent for a long moment, absorbing her words, their enormity. He’s irritated by them and by her because her argument is working overtime on his conscience. Maybe she really was in debate club. He never was. Thus he doesn’t have a good rebuttal.

 

“I’m here to _work_ ,” he says finally, tightly, repeating himself from last night. “My fa-- _Han_ suggested I come here so I could work in peace. So I need it to be quiet. No parties. No slamming doors. No loud music. Just peace and quiet. Yes?”

 

“What kind of work?”

 

“I write books.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“What kind of books? Anything I’ve read?”

 

“How would I know what you’ve read?” he snipes. This is stupid. He’s talking to the doorway because he can’t look at her because she’s naked. Which brings him to another house rule. “And please don’t walk around the house naked.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because you’re not the only one here!”

 

“So I should change _my_ behavior to accommodate _you_? How is that fair? Why don’t you change your behavior to accommodate _me_? Huh? Because you think you have some sort of authority here? Because I’m just some interloper?”

 

Well that’s a ten dollar word right there. “Were you actually in the fucking debate club or not?” he grouses.

 

He hears her bare feet on the tile floor, hears her coming closer. She’s right behind him when she says, “All of this sounds like a _you_ problem, mate, not a _me_ problem.” He jerks then, feeling her finger hook into the waistband of his boxer-briefs. “Why don’t you walk around naked, too? Then maybe you wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable. And I wouldn’t mind. You’re well fit.”

 

He feels his face get hot, his ears.

 

“The truth is...my body makes you uncomfortable because you like it. Because you want it,” she murmurs, low and enticing, tugging on his waistband a little. He can’t move, goose bumps rising all over his body. His mouth is dry. She pulls hard on his waistband and his cock stirs. But then she lets go, snapping the elastic against his skin, and says flatly, “But you can’t have it.”

 

And then she laughs, sharp and mocking, and brushes past him, leaving the kitchen. He stares at her ass as she walks away – it’s delicious like a ripe peach and he could eat it all fucking day. He hates her, he _fucking_ _hates_ her.

 

“You can look but you can’t touch, big brother,” she says over her shoulder before she disappears into the hall.

 

***

 

He has to get out of the house. So he gets dressed and walks to town.

 

Vacqueyras is small, situated along a river whose name he can’t pronounce, the streets narrow and charming, lots of flowers spilling out of window boxes. There are some cafes, an old church right in the middle of town, an ancient watchtower, fountains here and there, and no tourists. It’s pretty great.

 

He buys a bike with a metal basket on the back so he can carry groceries home. He buys groceries, as much as will fit in the basket.

 

He bikes back to the house. Rey’s little clown car – a purple Nissan Micra, a model he’s never seen nor heard of before – is still parked in front of the house when he gets back but she’s nowhere to be seen. He seems to have the house to himself for the moment, which suits him fine, so he does what he came here to do – gets to work.

 

He goes over the scribbles in his notebook and the very sketchy outline he cobbled together back in New York. It’s all shit. He needs to start over. He really doesn’t want to start over. Hell, he doesn’t even want to write this damn book. He’s sick as hell of writing about dragons fighting wizards in space.

 

He hears Rey moving around the house a couple hours later, but she avoids him and everything’s quiet for the rest of the day and he keeps working. He waits until she’s done with the kitchen to go down and make himself some dinner. She’s watching French TV in the living room so he eats dinner outside. The grapevines rustle in the breeze. The sun sets over the distant hills. Everything smells like lavender. It’s pretty fucking amazing. No wonder she loves it here.

 

***

 

When she walks into the kitchen the next morning, she’s not naked but it’s actually almost worse. Her panties are tiny and white, set off against her golden skin. And her tank top is ridiculous, a _suggestion_ of clothing – very loose, very low, _barely_ covering her hard nipples, and open everywhere else, showing off lots of skin. A faint breeze would show him all of her perfect, perky breasts. She’s like a present waiting to be unwrapped by the slightest tug on the ribbon. But not by him.

 

“Why even bother?” he says to her.

 

“ _What_?” she snaps, rolling her eyes.

 

He waves his hand up and down. “Your...outfit.”

 

She glares at him. “God, there’s just no pleasing you. You asked me to wear clothes. I’m wearing clothes. I’m being _obliging_. I can always take them off if you prefer.”

 

“Please don’t,” he mutters and takes his coffee upstairs.

 

He works all morning in peace. She seems to have disappeared again without taking her car, but he can’t imagine where – the house isn’t that big. Aside from seeing her naked in the mornings, which isn’t exactly awful, this could work out well enough, keeping out of each other’s way like this, living quietly.

 

He eats some lunch and then looks for a wrench so he can adjust the seat of his bike. He doesn’t find anything in the house so he goes out to the garage and that’s where he finds not a wrench but Rey. Who’s using a wrench. So this is where she’s been disappearing to.

 

She’s taken the tarp off the old motorbike Leclere showed him and she’s sitting on the floor working on it, various tools and lots of parts spread around her. Most remarkably, she’s wearing actual clothes – dirty overalls and a grease-stained t-shirt.

 

She glances up when he steps in. “Have you come to yell at me for daring to touch your dad’s motorcycle?”

 

“No.”

 

He watches her work for a moment, intrigued. She seems to be taking the engine apart. He once took apart an IKEA desk, when he was first moving across the river to Brooklyn. He put it back together and it was never the same after that, never level again for some reason. He’s not a DYI kind of guy.

 

“I needed a wrench. For my bike seat.”

 

“Bring it in here, I’ll help you.”

 

He’s not sure he needs help – he can manage a bike seat, at least. Probably. But she’s being nice to him even though he’s been quite mean to her, so he doesn’t argue. So he fetches his bike and sits on it, showing her how it fits his big frame wrong. It takes her about two seconds to adjust the seat and handlebars and then it fits like a glove.

 

“Thanks,” he says as she tightens up everything.

 

She shrugs and sits on the floor again, getting back to her task. “There’s a bike pump over there, if you ever need it.”

 

He nods, spotting it. He should go now. “You know how to drive that thing?” he asks of the motorcycle. It’s not a big bike, looks fairly light. It’s not some huge, heavy Harley. He imagines she can handle it just fine.

 

“Who do you think taught me?”

 

He clenches his jaw, anger flaring hotly, suddenly. His father never taught him how to ride a motorcycle. Or drive a car. Or fix an IKEA desk.

 

“Do you know how to ride?” she asks mildly.

 

“No,” he bites out.

 

She hums. “If I ever get this thing running again, I’ll show you. If you want.”

 

He blinks a couple times, completely disarmed, his anger shriveling. “Okay,” he hears himself say.

 

Oy vey, what is his life now?

 

Maybe this should be making him angrier – his father’s mistress’s super sexy twenty-year-old daughter teaching him something his father ought to have.

 

He carries his bike outside and hops on, going for a long ride through the surrounding countryside, letting himself get sorta lost.

 

***

 

It’s dark by the time he gets home. He’d found a winery in his ramblings and bought a bunch of red wine. Drank a bottle of it as he biked along. Then found his way to Vacqueyras and ate dinner there, taking his time, enjoying sitting by the river on the restaurant’s patio and drinking a lot more wine.

 

Rey’s car is gone. He wonders where she’s gone but only briefly because he’s kind of drunk and wants to sleep.

 

***

 

Something’s woken him up, he’s not sure what. Shouting. Someone’s shouting outside. He sits up, alarmed, and goes to his window, looks out. The pool lights are on and there’s a nearly-full moon tonight so he can easily see what’s happening, what the shouting is.

 

It’s Rey. She’s shouting because she’s vigorously fucking some pale bald guy on a lounge chair by the pool.

 

His whole body instantly buzzes and tightens and he’s oddly, vaguely reminded of the first time he ever saw porn on late-night cable.

 

He watches, knowing full well he should not. She’s naked and on top of the bald guy, bouncing away energetically, riding that cock hard. His own cock is getting hard. He wishes he weren’t this near-sighted so he could better see her tits bouncing, better see her pretty face tortured with pleasure. Fuck, he should not be watching this.

 

He reaches into his underwear and takes hold of himself, starts stroking his hard dick. He hates himself for doing this. The regret is already covering him like white on rice.

 

He rubs his pre-come around as much as he can, easing the way a little, and watches as she tips her head back and fucks the guy harder still, bracing herself on the guy’s thighs. The bald guy seems to be rubbing her clit and her shouts get louder and higher-pitched.

 

She’s real close, he can tell. So is he, already. He wants to come with her.

 

But then.

 

But _then_.

 

But then she’s coming and she’s shouting, “Daddy daddy daddy daddy, fuck me daddy, _yes_!”

 

He’s frozen, his hand still in his shorts but not moving, his cock slowly going limp in his hand.

 

Holy shit.

 

He has no words for how fucking fucked up that is.

 

 

TBC.


	3. Frère Jacques

He feels the conflict. It’s tearing him apart. He doesn’t know what to do.

 

He wants to go downstairs. He’s hungry, he wants coffee, he’s sick of lying here.

 

He doesn’t want to go downstairs. It’ll be weird to see Rey after last night, after hearing and watching her fuck that man. He may not have been able to avoid hearing her, but he didn’t have to watch.

 

He wants to go downstairs. This is his house, too, dammit! Why should he have to feel uncomfortable just getting a cup of coffee?

 

He doesn’t want to go downstairs. He knows Rey’s bald guy is down there, too. He can hear the lower tones of the man’s voice coming from downstairs.

 

He wants to go downstairs. Because Rey’s bald guy is down there and Ben’s bloody curious. What sort of man does she like to fuck? A nice guy or some asshole? He wants to know.

 

He doesn’t want to go downstairs. She’ll probably be naked again. Or in some skimpy scrap of clothing. Like that tank top again. Or maybe the white top she was wearing the other night, almost see-through and falling off. She might be wearing that. With some little lacy panties, the kind that go right up between her ass cheeks, hugging them, showing them off.

 

He’s walking into the kitchen sixty seconds later.

 

She’s by the counter eating toast smeared with Nutella and wearing a big gray t-shirt that hangs down to the middle of her thighs. She looks way too adorable like that, sweetly sexy. He briefly thinks of her bouncing, naked body in the moonlight. He’s relieved she’s not naked now. Yes. Relieved. Definitely. And also because--

 

Wait. Wait.

 

“Is that my t-shirt?” he blurts out, stopping in the doorway.

 

She looks up, seemingly surprised he’s suddenly here. Then she looks down at her t-shirt and shrugs. “Uh-huh.”

 

“You went in my room?” he persists, his voice rising in pitch in a way he hates.

 

“Yeah,” she admits. And then she grins, adding, “I was looking for a t-shirt.”

 

“While I was _sleeping_?”

 

“Of course not. While you were out of the house yesterday. I’m not an idiot.”

 

“Don’t go in my room!”

 

She starts lifting up the hem of the shirt, slowly. “You want it back?”

 

“No! Keep your shirt on. _Literally_. And don’t go in my room.”

 

Rey laughs at him, her mouth full of toast. He scowls at her. _Very_ threateningly.

 

Someone says something in French. He looks. Oh shit, the bald guy. The bald guy’s sitting at the table. He forgot about the bald guy.

 

The bald guy is wearing a banana hammock – a very small pair of bright green man panties, his saggy, flabby gut hanging over the waistband. Gross. These are _not_ the skimpy panties he was hoping to see this morning. Also, the guy has back hair. And _shoulder_ hair. And he’s old, at least ten years older than Ben, which puts him at least twenty years older than Rey. Fucking gross.

 

_This_ is the kind of man Rey goes for? Yikes.

 

Rey answers the guy in French, rattling it off perfectly. It’s kind of impressive, really. He didn’t know she spoke French. Maybe he should’ve. It seems obvious now that she would.

 

He doesn’t know what she’s saying, but then he catches his name and one of the five words of French he _does_ understand. It’s not _oui_ or _bonjour_ or _merci_ or _coq au vin_ (his mother loves to make _coq au vin_ ). It’s _frère_. Every American kid knows the tune.

 

_Frère Jacques, frère Jacques, dormez-vous, dormez-vous?_ _Morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing. Ding ding dong, ding ding dong._

 

And the bald guy is repeating the word and looking at him very oddly. “ _Ton frère_?”

 

“ _Oui, mon frère_ ,” Rey says.

 

“Did you just say I’m your brother?” he asks Rey, his voice spiking way up high again.

 

“Yep.”

 

“No,” he says quickly, shaking his head and waving his hands at the bald guy. “Not her brother. No _frère_ , no _frère_.”

 

“You’re... _not_ her brother?” the guy asks in heavily accented but perfect English.

 

“No. _Not_ her brother.”

 

“Oh, he’s always saying that! Ben’s such a meanie,” Rey says dismissively, bouncing over to the bald guy and plopping down on his lap.

 

He stares at her wiggling around on the guy’s banana hammock, disgusted and fascinated. “No, really, I’m _not_ her brother.”

 

“See?” she says. “Always so mean to his little sissy!”

 

“I’m not—“

 

“Why do you have different accents?” the gross bald guy asks quite reasonably. “You are _Américain_ , she is _Anglais, oui_?”

 

“Because I’m not—“

 

“Twins,” she interrupts. “Separated at birth.”

 

The bald guy’s eyebrows shoot up. “You are _twins_?”

 

“Yep, identical twins,” she says, nodding seriously. The guy glances at Ben and then looks back to Rey, probably comparing her fine, lovely features to his own unsubtle, heavy ones. “Not just identical twins, in fact. _Conjoined_ twins. We were one body. Our hearts were connected.”

 

Ben shakes his head and lumbers over to the coffee pot, needing caffeine, pretty sure he must still be sleeping and having some weird-ass dream.

 

“But then they cut us apart. And then he was adopted by a rich American couple and raised over there in a huge mansion. I stayed in England in a children’s group home. No one ever wanted me.”

 

The bald guy is staring at her probably the same way Ben’s staring at her – like she’s a fucking nutcase.

 

“But it all turned out fine eventually! Because we found each other, didn’t we, love? And we’re together again.” She sighs, sounding content, and rests her head on the bald guy’s hairy shoulder. “Isn’t this nice? My daddy and my brother, both here together with me. One big happy family.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters to himself, gulping hot coffee and burning his tongue. She really is fucking nuts. Or having a laugh of epic proportions at his expense. He’s not sure which.

 

Then she kisses the bald guy and, yeah, that’s his cue to go upstairs and bleach his eyeballs for a while.

 

But the bald guy is pulling away and standing up, glancing Ben’s way. “I’m sorry, my darling, time for me to go,” he tells Rey, patting her cheek.

 

“No, daddy, stay! Come swimming with me,” she pleads, flinging her arms around his neck.

 

The guy peels her arms off. “My daughter’s birthday party is today, darling, I must go.”

 

Wow, that was the exact wrong thing to say.

 

Ben sees Rey’s face fall like a lead balloon. He sees the pain etched in her eyes. Then her face darkens like a storm cloud.

 

The guy’s backing away, trying to leave the kitchen, and she flings herself at him, flinging her arms back around his neck, fiercely, pressing her perfect body to his flabby body. “Don’t you want to play with me, daddy?” she asks coquettishly, rubbing against him shamelessly.

 

Ben stares, watching this car crash in progress.

 

The guy peels her arms off again, holding her by the arms, saying something to her in French. Which she answers in French. Which he answers sharply and turns away, walking out of the kitchen and into the living room.

 

Rey follows, yelling at the guy in French. And Ben finds himself following her, he can’t help it, needing to see how this car crash proceeds.

 

The bald guy’s pulling his pants on, ignoring Rey shouting at him. But then she pulls her shirt up, flashing her bare body at the guy, and flings herself at him again, trying to kiss him, and Ben cringes painfully inside, horrified by her desperate display.

 

The guy shoves her off, hard, and she falls, lands on her ass on the hardwood floor.

 

Red and black fill Ben’s sight.

 

He plows forward and shoves the guy back. “Don’t you fucking push her!” he barks.

 

The guy says something in French, sounding defiant, so Ben shoves him again, harder, and the guy staggers back into the edge of the coffee table.

 

“Get the _fuck_ out of my house,” he growls, jabbing his fingers into the guy’s soft chest.

 

The bald guy grabs up the rest of his clothes and storms out and Ben follows, crowding him out the front door, making sure he fucking fucks off. The guy gets in his car, a red Porsche parked behind Rey’s Nissan, and peels out, his tires kicking up gravel as he speeds off down the drive.

 

Fucking asshole.

 

Who drives a red Porsche anyway? Only someone with a tiny dick. It’s a wonder she could get off on that thing.

 

He turns, finding Rey standing in the hallway behind him. “Are you okay?” he asks.

 

She nods mutely, looking crestfallen and dejected, looking very young. He steps toward her, reaching for her in an automatic way, but she spins on her heel and runs away, running up the stairs at the end of the hall. A few moments later, he hears her bedroom door slam shut.

 

He pulls his hands through his hair, sighing heavily.

 

Well that was an interesting start to the day.

 

***

 

She disappears into the garage for the rest of the day and Ben lets her be.

 

He works on his book. But he can’t concentrate on aliens and space battles and all that shit. He can’t stop thinking about this morning and last night, about Rey fucking that man and calling him _daddy_ – and not in a prurient way, not wholly, not chasing his own sexual gratification. No, after what happened this morning, Ben can’t stop turning over her pathological reaction to the man leaving.

 

He jots down a few notes about all of it in his notebook, a brief summary of what happened, a couple thoughts and observations. An idea for a character starts to take shape in his head – in the vague shape of Rey – and he makes a couple notes about that, not wanting to lose the idea. It might be something he can revisit or use later somehow, in some other project.

 

***

 

“What’re you reading?”

 

“Hemingway,” he murmurs, not looking up from his book, trying to finish this sentence. When he does look up, he gets an eyeful. She’s leaning against the arm of the sofa across the way, pulling on some diabolically high heels, her short, tight dress riding up high. He looks away. “You’re going out?”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“With that guy again?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“The guy from this morning.”

 

“ _That_ guy? Uh no,” she chuckles dismissively, as if the idea’s obviously ridiculous. “I’m just going clubbing in Orange.”

 

“I thought you liked him, though,” he says mildly, probing. He chances another look at her. She’s got her shoes on and isn’t flashing her crotch at him, so it’s safe. “You were upset when he left.”

 

“Ha! Not even,” she says indifferently, reaching down into the top of her clingy dress and adjusting her tits. He doesn’t believe her indifference but doesn’t push her on it. “Do you ever go out?” she asks. “Or is this the highlight of your night life?”

 

“I’m not here to go clubbing,” he says, looking back to his book.

 

“Okay, but you could find some hot French lady, go out, have dinner or whatever, shag her.”

 

“I’m not here to date, either.”

 

“Then just the shagging part.”

 

“Mm,” he grunts, noncommittal.

 

He doesn’t date much at all, to be honest, and never seriously. And the “just shagging” part doesn’t interest him much, not anymore. He did all that in his undergrad days, even into grad school, making up for the desert wasteland of his awkward high school years. The summer right after graduation, he worked on a sailboat for three months and consequently stopped shaving, grew his hair out, and packed on muscle. His mother called him a pirate when he returned home. When he started college that fall, he took advantage of the effect his new body and new look had on girls. Lots and lots of random hookups. And sometimes recurring hookups with over-eager, always-willing girls who thought he liked them. He was a total shit, to be honest. He never hurt anyone, not physically anyway, but he certainly didn’t treat those girls well. At the time, however, he was having fun.

 

No, that’s not true at all. He wasn’t having _fun_. More like he was trying to paper over his omnipresent loneliness, a constant companion and by-product of his childhood. Talk about pathological behavior.

 

It didn’t work, though. The loneliness never shifted. Which is why he’s more or less given up on dating and all that.

 

“You could have any woman you want,” Rey says.

 

He looks at her again, trying to gauge the level of her bullshit, saying something like that. He doesn’t see any bullshit, though, not in they way she’s looking back at him. She almost looks...shy? He doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing.

 

“Anyway. It’s just a suggestion, big brother,” she says airily, grabbing her purse off the coffee table and clomping away, leaving. “Don't wait up!”

 

***

 

He wakes up to the sound of her having sex again. The grunting and the shouting and the groaning and the “daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy!”

 

He groans, getting hard despite himself. He doesn’t get out of bed to look – he thinks she’s downstairs, anyway, in the living room. He just listens. And jerks off. He thinks about her naked body and he comes all over his belly when she cries out with finality, high and long.

 

The next morning plays out a lot like the previous morning: The guy she fucked is too old for her and too married, sticks around for a cup of coffee and toast, fucks off, Rey gets upset, hides for the rest of the day. There’s no violence, at least, no shoving. And the following evening brings much the same, too: she appears in a skimpy dress, she goes out, he reads and then goes to bed, he wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of her getting her pussy pounded, he listens and jerks off to it.

 

It becomes a bit of a pattern. Always a different older man. Once or twice she stays out all night, doesn’t come home. Ben tries not to worry about her on those nights, but he does anyway. When she returns in the mornings in last night’s dress, carrying her shoes, she still seems upset and hides for the rest of the day.

 

He has to wonder what she’s getting out of all of it. Probably as much as he ever did when he was her age.

 

Work on his next Star Warfare novel slows to a glacial pace because he keeps making notes and jotting ideas about this new character he can’t stop thinking of. This girl who is totally _not_ Rey at all, by the way.

 

He writes down a couple brief sketches about this new character – a handful of scribbled paragraphs he might be able to weave into a short story later, when he has time. Or maybe a _series_ of short stories, loosely connected or not. It’d be like the Nick Adams stories he’s read over and over and over in his tattered copy of The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. Yes, he likes that idea.

 

He fills up the rest of his spiral notebook with ideas about this new character and bikes to town to get more notebooks.

 

It’s odd, feeling excited about his writing again, for the first time in years.

 

TBC.


	4. The Garden of Eden

_She’s hot and throbbing inside. But she’s in control. She works her body and her pussy all night long to exercise her feminine power, her empowerment. Her beautiful body is her weapon and her shield._

_But her head’s a different story. Her head’s a mess and she doesn’t even realize it. She’s still sick and ingrained with the notion that men lord over her. Try as she might to appropriate, usurp, and put a feminist spin on her actions – rejecting sexual double standards, embracing her “inner stripper” – she ultimately keeps falling victim to patriarchal dominance._

_Because to her lovers, old men who should be thanking their lucky fucking stars, she’s a beautiful, curvy instrument for their cocks. To her lovers’ minds, she only yields a melody when a master plucks her. To her lovers’ minds, they can play with her and then set her aside in the corner for another day. To her lovers, she’s a harp. And a harpy._

***

He flips through the last couple pages, rereading what he’s written, tapping his pen against his desk thoughtfully. This is fine and all, but there’s no _movement_. Nothing’s _happening_. He needs _plot_ , dammit. Plot without space dragons and laser blasters and ancient mystical prophesies.

 

_Argh_. He’s not sure he’s cut out for this.

 

What would Hemingway do? Write about fishing in a Spanish river and having lunch at a French café, that’s what.

 

Hmm... Lunch sounds good. Yes. He’s fucking _starving_. He could bike to town and make like Hemingway and have a nice fresh lunch on the patio at Le Papillon. Drink icy cold wine. Have a swim later. God, he loves this place.

 

He puts his pen in his notebook and shuts it and gets dressed.

 

***

 

It’s not fervent groaning and desperate shouting that wakes him up tonight. It’s music. Horrible, thumping dance shit, so loud. He can’t really hear the “tune”, such as it might be, just the nonstop thumping. He lies there for about five minutes, grinding his molars, willing the “song” to end. It doesn’t end, it just morphs into a second, thumpier song. And gets louder.

 

He flings off his sheet and pulls on his boxer briefs and stomps downstairs to the living room. He already knows what he’s going to find but he goes anyway, he can’t help it. Horrible, thumping music in the middle of the night is just one of those things that _cannot_ be abided.

 

Yep, she’s having sex. Pumping away on top of some man on the couch. The man can’t see him standing there in the doorway, and all Ben can see of the man is the bald spot on the top of his head. But Ben does, finally, have a very good view of Rey’s slim body and bare pussy and bouncing tits as she enthusiastically fucks her latest...friend.

 

She looks like some sort of ancient goddess, she’s so perfect. Like one of those marble statues of naked nymphs come to life and made warm, lively, real, glowing, burnished, sweaty, pink-tipped flesh.

 

And she’s holding the remote control for the stereo in her hot little hand. Aiming it across the room at the stereo. Turning the volume up and up and up. Until she sees him standing there in the doorway. Then she tosses the remote away.

 

And he gets it – she wanted him to come down here. And watch.

 

So he does.

 

And she watches him watch her.

 

Her heavy gaze roves over his body as his roves over hers.

 

His cock is already filling, pressing against his shorts. Her eyes land on it and her mouth opens a little. Her stare has him getting harder, rising, the thin cotton tenting. Her eyes flick up, meeting his, and he knows what she wants. So he reaches in. He touches himself. She bites her lip.

 

She’s watching his hand move in his underwear. She reaches up and touches her breast, squeezing gently, playing with it, rubbing her thumb over her hard nipple.

 

He groans out loud but the music covers it. His hand moves faster.

 

She drags her hand down her flat belly, down to her clit, and plays with herself there. Her slick tongue peeks out to wet her lips and now he gets to see her face tensing with pleasure as she chases her orgasm.

 

The hand on his cock speeds up and his knees are getting wobbly so he braces himself against the doorframe with his free hand, his balls tightening, his own tense pleasure building almost painfully.

 

Her pumping becomes frantic and her eyes squeeze shut and her wet mouth falls open wide. She’s coming, he can tell. Shouting, he can tell, though he can’t hear her. He comes too, just after, with his own desperate shout, their cries lost in the thumping noise.

 

When his vision clears and he’s wiping come off his hand, she’s staring at him, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed. He stares back, breathing hard.

 

The moment stretches long and strange and taut, a silken thread pulling on them, pulling them together.

 

But the moment and the thread snap when he realizes how her body’s still moving, the man beneath her fucking up into her, pounding her, wanting to come, too.

 

Ben turns away and goes back upstairs to bed, not wanting to see it, not wanting to see some other man come inside her.

 

The music shuts off a couple minutes later and the silence is startling, leaving him with nothing his pulse still thumping in his ears and his swirling, confused, conflicted thoughts.

 

***

 

It doesn’t occur to him until he’s reached the bottom of the staircase that he hasn’t dressed. He’s still in last night’s boxer briefs and nothing else. But something strange takes him over and compels him on, into the kitchen, rather than back up to his room. Some kind of need to show her his body again. A need to show her the come stains he made on his underwear because of her. A need to show her how debauched and disgusting he is.

 

He comes into the kitchen and she’s there at the kitchen counter, like usual, but already looking at him, like she’s been watching the door.

 

“Hi,” she says faintly, like she’s nervous.

 

“Hi.” He’s nervous, too. He can still see her fingers rubbing her nipples, rubbing her clit.

 

She smiles just a little bit and turns away, going to the coffee maker, pouring out a cup.

 

“Uh, who are you, mate?” the man at the table asks. His accent surprises Ben. Not the usual French but some kind of Brit. Scottish? Maybe. Hard to tell. Ben catches the man glancing at his crotch, probably noticing the pale semen stains on his dark cotton underwear.

 

The man’s question doesn’t faze Ben because he gets that question on most of these mornings. And Rey’s answer is usually the same, playing her little game of Happy Families.

 

Rey hands Ben the cup of coffee she’s just poured and begins her standard answer, “Oh, he’s just my--“

 

“I’m her brother,” Ben says, interrupting.

 

Rey looks at him, smiling brightly, evidently pleased that he’s playing along for once. “My twin brother,” she finishes.

 

The Scottish man’s response is pretty standard, too. “Your _twin_?”

 

Ben sits down at the table with the man. “Identical twin,” he says.

 

The Scot’s face is the very picture of confusion and disbelief – even more so when Rey leans against Ben, her hip pressing against his arm.

 

He sips his coffee. Mm, good. Rey makes really great coffee. “Did you sleep okay, sissy?”

 

“Mmhmm,” she hums, her hand coming up and combing back his long hair with her fingers, giving him goosebumps.

 

“Good,” he says, slipping his arm from under her hip and hooking it around her legs. God, they’re so smooth and soft. He’s never actually touched her, he realizes. He takes advantage, gives her thigh a gentle rub and then tickles her knee.

 

She yelps and laughs and tugs on his hair. “Stop it!”

 

Yeah, he might need to get her to do that again, pull his hair like that.

 

“You walk around like that in front of your _brother_?” the Scot says sharply, interrupting, looking scandalized.

 

Ben frowns, confused for a moment. “Like what?” he asks.

 

But oh right yeah. Rey’s wearing nothing but some scanty white panties that hug her hips real low and an old t-shirt she’s chopped very short. It shows the undersides of her pretty tits in an inviting way, almost showing her nipples. Her standard sort of morning attire. Entirely provocative and hot. Honestly, though, Ben would be more shocked if she came in wearing long sweats and a normal shirt one morning.

 

“Like _that_ ,” the man says.

 

“And what’s wrong with it?” Rey snaps.

 

“It’s-it’s not... _appropriate_ ,” the man stutters.

 

“ _Appropriate_?” Rey parrots testily. “We’re _twins_ ,” she argues, possessively banding her arm around Ben’s shoulders. “ _Identical twins_. My skin is the same as his skin, so who gives a fuck?”

 

“And she can wear whatever she wants anyway,” Ben says reasonably, being the voice of...reason. And reality.

 

He looks up at her. Her tits are right there. He’d like to nibble them. He rubs her leg again. “I think you look so pretty this morning, sissy.”

 

“Aw, thank you, big brother,” she says, smiling at him and then leaning down, kissing the corner of his mouth lightly.

 

His wants to hang onto her, hold her where she is, kiss her mouth properly, taste her and be sweet to her. But he’s too surprised to react quickly enough. And this is all a game anyway. All for show.

 

And it’s working because the Scot looks horrified. “So you’re not just a slag, you’re also a _freak_ ,” he says scornfully.

 

“ _What’d you fucking say_?” Ben barks, his blood running suddenly hot.

 

“He just called me a freak and a slut,” Rey says flatly, coldly. “Slag means slut.”

 

The Scottish man is suddenly sprawled on the floor and Ben’s right hand hurts, throbbing.

 

Oh.

 

He must’ve just hit the guy.

 

_Good_.

 

“You should go now,” Rey tells the man, still in that flat, hard way. “Or my brother’s going to kick your fucking teeth in.”

 

The man’s gone two minutes later, almost running out of the house.

 

For once after one of these ignominious morning encounters, Rey doesn’t run up to her room and hide and sulk. Instead, she turns to him and asks, “Wanna go for a swim?”

 

***

 

He’s been swimming back and forth for at least ten minutes waiting for Rey, not sure what’s taking her so long. He’s nervous again, not sure what’s going to happen here. After last night, after this morning... Something’s changed, shifted. He thinks. Maybe it hasn’t. Maybe he’s just assuming so. Maybe that really was all for show, all pretend, all a game to mess with some old creeper, even last night. He’s not sure.

 

He climbs out of the pool, combing back his wet hair, and lies down on a deck chair in the sun. His pale skin doesn’t tan easily, usually just burning instead, quickly. But over the past few weeks, swimming and being outside more than usual and biking around, he’s been building up a slow tan. He wants to get darker, though, like Rey, match her deep golden tan.

 

When he hears her coming down the steps, he sits up. Her hair’s up and she’s wearing sunglasses and a small bright blue bikini, the kind that ties closed. He’s reminded of a thought he had once – how she’s a gift waiting to be unwrapped but not by him. But now he wonders if he’ll get to.

 

She walks up to his deck chair and he can’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses, can’t see if she’s looking at his body in his clingy wet swim trunks. He bought them in town because he hadn’t bothered to bring any trunks with him from New York. They’re much smaller and tighter than he’d ever wear in the States, but these were literally the biggest shorts the shop had. It was either these or a tiny lycra Speedo. Europe for ya.

 

She tosses something in his lap – a bottle of sunscreen.

 

“Is this for me?” he asks.

 

“If you want. But I meant it for me.”

 

“Okay then.” He’s not getting it. He holds the bottle back up but she doesn’t take it.

 

“Can you put it on me?”

 

His brain fizzes. She wants him to put the sunscreen on her back. He can do that.

 

“Uh, okay. Uh, you wanna lay down?” He starts to get up but she puts her foot up on his knee, keeping him there. Her little toenails are painted the same blue as her bathing suit.

 

“No, I mean all over,” she says.

 

The literal, stupid part of his brain thinks that’s rather unnecessary, she can surely reach everywhere she needs to. Except her back.

 

But then the male, _really_ stupid part of his brain catches up with what she’s saying.

 

“Okay,” he says weakly.

 

She keeps her foot where it is and he fumbles with the bottle a moment, trying to get it open, his fingers clumsy, nervous. He squeezes too much of the white lotion onto his hand and spreads it between his palms.

 

He chances a glance up at her face, wondering if he’s somehow actually misunderstood her. But her face is unreadable, her eyes still hidden.

 

So he gently lays his hand on her ankle, and when she doesn’t kick him in the balls, he wraps both hands around her leg and slides them up slowly. Over her calf and shin, coating them. Over her knee and up to her thigh, all the way up to the thin tie of her swim suit at her hip, careful to avoid the highest, softest, most inside part of her thigh.

 

He likes the way his hands look wrapped around her leg, almost engulfing her slim thigh. He likes the feel of her skin, the feel of the strong, long muscles under her skin. His cock is liking it, too.

 

He slides his hands back down, working the lotion in as he goes, focusing on making the white disappear, trying to keep his body in check. It ain’t easy.

 

“Do you think I’m a slut?” she asks.

 

His hands pause at her knee. “No I don’t,” he answers, resuming his work, working back down to her ankle.

 

“It’s not the first time someone’s called me that.”

 

Now his body is well in check. He strokes her ankle gently, trying to comfort her. “They shouldn’t have, Rey.”

 

She takes her leg away and puts her other foot on his thigh. He squeezes out more sunscreen and begins the process all over again.

 

“Why shouldn’t I do what every bloody _man_ does? Huh?” she asks fiercely. It doesn’t sound like a rhetorical question.

 

“You can. You can do whatever you want, Rey. Whatever makes you happy.”

 

But that’s the thing. He’s not convinced she _is_ happy.

 

But...that’s not fair. He’s not a mind reader and he doesn’t know her all that well, not _really_. He’s assuming too much about her, maybe. He’s conflating her with what he’s been writing in his notebooks, maybe.

 

“You’re not a slut, Rey,” he repeats. Carefully, he offers more. “And _I_ don’t do what all those other men do.”

 

“I know. That’s because you’re better than all of them put together,” she says simply, making his chest thump hard.

 

He looks up at her for a long moment, trying to read her. But he can’t. She takes her leg away and he wonders if that’s it, moment over. Their strange encounter over.

 

But then she’s reaching behind her back. She’s untying her top. The top comes loose and she pulls it away, baring her breasts for him. He stares. His mouth goes dry. She’s just so perfectly beautiful. Other men might want bigger tits or rounder hips, but he can’t imagine wanting anyone else but her.

 

“Go on, then,” she prompts, pointing at the sunscreen bottle.

 

His heart’s pounding. He isn’t sure why it feels different, seeing her tits like this. Maybe because she wants him to _touch_. Not just look, not just watch.

 

He tries to squeeze out more sunscreen but the bottle splurts air and little droplets, making a rude sound. _Real smooth_.

 

He gives the bottle a shake and tries again. He wraps his slicked hands around her slim waist and slides them up, his fingers around her sides but his thumbs still meeting in the middle of her belly. His hands are so big on her, he just loves it.

 

His hands slide over her ribs and up over her breasts, her rock hard nipples dragging along his palms. _Fuck fuck fuck_. But he keeps going, up to her collarbone, her shoulders. She’s looking down at him, her eyes still hidden but the way she’s biting her lip giving something away. She likes what he’s doing.

 

He slides his hands back down like he did on her legs, rubbing, making the lotion disappear into her smooth skin. He lingers on her tits, rubbing, holding them, feeling their weight, taking a chance when he brushes his thumbs over her nipples, teasing just for a moment. She makes a little sound in her throat, a little high groan, and his cock grows and throbs. She must be able to see it, see how he’s straining against his tight trunks.

 

He wants to rub her nipples again, maybe roll them in his fingers, but she’s turning away, giving him her back. And while he’s filling his hand with sunscreen to do her back, she pulls at the ties at her hips and she’s suddenly naked inches from his face.

 

Her ass is rounder, fuller than one might expect – he’d noticed that the first morning he found her naked in the kitchen. And every other morning after that. And every afternoon and evening, too, in whatever she wears.

 

He kneads lotion into her shoulders, her back, her waist, saving her ass for last. He fills his hands with her ass, squeezing the firm, soft flesh, and she makes that sound again and jerks back into his hands, a little thrust, seeking more.

 

“Rey,” he murmurs, losing control of himself, running his hands all over her taut, slippery skin – her ass, her back, her ribs, her tits, her belly – eager and hungry and greedy, reveling in how unbearably _good_ she feels. “ _Rey Rey Rey Rey_.”

 

She turns under his hands, facing him again, and he rests his hands on her naked hips and studies her crotch, right in front of his face. She’s completely smooth, waxed bare. Her sweet slit is everything. He wants to follow her seam to treasure like a fucking gold miner. His mouth, once dry, now waters. He squeezes her hips, not sure if he should pull her to his hungry mouth or keep her away from it.

 

“You can touch my cunt if you want,” she says softly.

 

He loves her filthy mouth. He squeezes her hips again, rubbing his thumbs over her hipbones, and looks up at her. Her damn sunglasses. “Is that what you want?” he murmurs, needing to be sure.

 

“Yes, daddy.”

 

His blood runs ice cold.

 

Goddamn it.

 

He drops his hands from her hips. “Don’t do that.”

 

“What?” she asks.

 

“I’m not your fucking daddy, Rey,” he says as gently as he can.

 

Even with her sunglasses on, he can see how her face falls – that familiar disappointment. “You don’t want me?” she asks softly.

 

“That’s not what I said.”

 

“Then what’s the problem?”

 

“I’m not going to be your _daddy_. That’s fucked up.”

 

“So you think I’m a freak, too.”

 

“That is not what I _said_ ,” he insists.

 

“Yeah. It is.” She bends down and grabs the bits of her swimsuit off the ground.

 

“Rey—“

 

“No, actually, I was right before. You’re an asshole.”

 

And with that, she’s gone, running up the steps to the house, disappearing inside.

 

He curses to himself. He should chase after her, try to explain, make her understand. And not just because he so badly wants to have sex with her. He wants to make her _see_.

 

But what the hell could he say that wouldn’t drive her even further away?

 

“Here’s the thing, Rey. You’re not fucking those men as a liberated young woman. You’re trying to replace lost fathers. You want some inappropriately older man to love you and take care of you and stay with you and not abandon you. And you think the only way that’ll _happen_ is if you fuck them as soon as you can. And then you try to hold onto their interest with your naked, sexy body. But those men _do_ abandon you, every time, regardless. Because you’re choosing the exact _wrong_ kind of man, every time, consciously or not.”

 

That wouldn’t go over well.

 

***

 

She avoids him like a champ for the next two days.

 

She goes out both those evenings but doesn’t come home until morning. It drives him mad.

 

***

 

“Oh. Uh. I’ll go.”

 

“You don’t have to. I know you like to read in here.”

 

“The light’s better.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He hesitates in the doorway, drumming his fingers on his Kindle, considering. He should go. Everything’s weird now. Not that it wasn’t fucking weird _before_.

 

She’s curled up on the couch in baggy sweatpants and a t-shirt, clutching an electric heating pad to her belly. “You’re not...you’re not going out tonight?”

 

She gives him a look. “No. I’m cramping like a motherfucker.” She does look rather miserable. She leans her head against the couch. “I don’t go out when I’m cramping and I don’t fuck when I’m on the rag. That’s gross.”

 

“Mm. Very vivid.”

 

He does sit. Gets comfortable in his chair under the lamp and turns his Kindle on, finds where he left off in his book. He reads for a bit and almost forgets she’s there – _almost_ – until she asks, “What’re you reading?”

 

“Hemingway.”

 

“ _Again_? Yeesh.”

 

“Have you ever read Hemingway?”

 

“No.”

 

“Mm-hmm.”

 

“ _Mm-hmm_ ,” she imitates.

 

Silence descends and he reads on for a few minutes until she says, “Read some to me.”

 

“You wouldn’t like it.”

 

“Don’t be a condescending git. How would you know what I like?”

 

He bites his tongue, tempted to say more than he should.

 

“Distract me. I’m dying over here.” And then she mutters, almost to herself, “Men have no idea, I swear to god.”

 

He can’t help but grin at that, but hides it behind his Kindle. “Fine then,” he relents. He clears his throat.

 

“’ _They had a very good breakfast of café au lait, brioche and strawberry jam, and..._ ’” He frowns and gives it his best try. “’ _Oeufs au plat avec jambon. And when they were finished_ \--’”

 

“Wait, wait,” she interrupts. “What’d you just try to say there?”

 

He repeats himself, with no better success. She makes him spell it out and then she says it for him properly. “Do you know what that is?” she asks.

 

“No.”

 

“Fried eggs with ham.”

 

“Oh. I thought it was something more...fancy.”

 

“Well he couldn’t just write ‘fried eggs and ham’, could he? ‘Fried eggs and ham’ is not glamorous. It’s better in French.” She’s got a good point. “Okay, go on.”

 

“’ _And when they were finished Catherine said, “I wish you could see yourself_.” “ _I’m glad I can’t_.” “ _I wish you’d looked in the glass_.” “ _I couldn’t_.” “ _Just look at me. That’s how you are. That’s how you look_.”’”

 

“Wait,” she interrupts again. “What’s happening?”

 

“You’re a bad listener.”

 

“No, you’re a bad reader.”

 

He rolls his eyes. “She’s just convinced him to have his hair cut and bleached to look like hers.”

 

“Oh. Why?”

 

“Because she wants to be him.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I mean, like, she wants to be a man. Sort of. Equal to a man. But she also wants him to be _her_. For them to be the same. The same _person_. One person.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Oy vey, this is page one hundred seventy-two! Are you gonna listen or what?”

 

“Fine, whatever.”

 

“You can borrow it later, start at the beginning,” he mutters, and then continues.

 

“’” _We couldn’t really have done that,” David said, “I couldn’t look the way you do.”_ _“Well we did,” Catherine said, “And you do. So you better start to like it. And we’re damned now. I was and now you are. Look at me and see how much you like it.”_ _David looked at her eyes that he loved and at her tanned face and the incredibly flat ivory color of her hair and at how happy she looked and he began to realize what a completely stupid thing he had permitted_.’”

 

***

 

She starts nodding off in the middle of the next chapter – he catches her eyes sliding shut then popping open a few times. He keeps reading aloud, slowly, lowly, and she’s snoring lightly by the end of the chapter. He’s hungry so he gets up quietly and starts some dinner.

 

The beeping of the timer must wake her because she wanders into the kitchen, still looking sleepy, as he’s taking the casserole dish out of the hot oven.

 

“Are you feeling better?”

 

She shrugs. “A bit.”

 

“Are you hungry?”

 

She shrugs again. “A bit,” she says, going to the cupboard where she keeps her cold cereal.

 

“It’s just mac and cheese, but there’s plenty,” he says, with meaning. She looks at him over her shoulder, like she’s not sure he means it. “Get some pasta bowls down.”

 

So she does and he scoops up two big helpings.

 

“We call it ‘macaroni cheese’ in the UK,” she tells him while she pours out two glasses of wine. “None of this ‘mac and cheese’ bullshit.”

 

“Well you say it wrong, then.”

 

“No you do. Bloody colonials.”

 

They sit on the couch and eat all the mac and cheese. She eats more of it than he does. Where does she put it all? They drink a whole bottle of wine and watch some horrible reality show called The Only Way is Essex dubbed in French on television. She tries to explain what’s going on but he’s pretty sure it wouldn’t make sense even if it were still in English.

 

For dessert they have ice cream with some sliced nectarines. They’re wonderfully ripe. He got them the other day at a farm stand along the road. The news comes on and he turns on the closed captioning and changes the language setting to English so she doesn’t have to keep interpreting.

 

She turns her heating pad on again and soon enough falls asleep beside him on the couch. Her head comes to rest on his shoulder. He dares not move, not even to reach for the remote control to turn down the volume on the television.

 

There are a couple news reports about terrible things happening in the States and he feels very disconnected from it, like that’s a different world, like his whole world has shrunk down to this place. This couch.

 

 

 

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shouts out to Paula Vogel's Hot 'N Throbbing and Ernest Hemingway's The Garden of Eden.


	5. Playthings

 

While she’s still on the rag, Rey gets the motorbike put back together again and running like new. She makes him put on a helmet and teaches him how to ride it, shouting instructions at him as he putters back and forth on the forecourt at about five miles an hour. He gets the hang of it pretty quick.

 

When she’s satisfied he’s not going to crash and break his neck, she pulls her own helmet over her tightly braided hair and jumps on the back. She settles herself behind him, wrapping her arms around his middle, and makes him go down the long drive to the road. He gets it up to a blazing ten miles an hour and stops at the end of the drive.

 

“Wanna keep going?” she asks.

 

He really, really likes the feel of her arms around him, the feel of her small hands pressed against his hard belly, even through his t-shirt. He can still remember, vividly, the feel of his hands pressed against her bare skin, and he’s imagined several times over the past few days how good it would be if their roles switched – if she were the one rubbing sunscreen onto his naked body. He’d like that. He’d like her hands all over him. Right now he’ll settle for on his belly over his shirt.

 

“Okay,” he says.

 

“You’ll have to go a bit faster on the road.”

 

“Got it.”

 

He’s sort of nervous as they first turn onto the road and speed up to twenty-five miles an hour. But he knows from tooling around on his bicycle that the roads around here are rather quiet, rarely traveled, only getting slightly busier near town. His confidence grows as he takes one back road after another and he gets the motorbike up to forty at one point - briefly. She shouts to him that her dead grandmother can drive this bike faster than him, but he doesn’t take the bait. At any rate, he must be doing a good job because soon she rests her head on his back.

 

They need gas for the bike and it’s getting to be lunchtime, so he heads towards Vacqueyras. Luckily he has his wallet on him. Only when she’s topping up the tank does does he realize they didn’t lock up the house or bring their phones. He says as much and she shrugs, unconcerned. He’s less unconcerned. They should probably go home. But then she says they should get some wine and bread and other nice things to eat at the _epicerie fine_ and the _boulangerie_ and take the bike up into the Dentelles de Montmirail and have a picnic and he’s not going to argue with that idea just because the front door is unlocked.

 

The narrow road meanders through wooded areas and past green vineyards and farms, twisting lazily and climbing steadily up and up as they head into the foothills. The road ends by a small farm so they climb off.

 

“We can walk up the path a little, there should be a good spot,” she says, pulling off her helmet and patting down her braids.

 

They do find a good spot not too far up the worn footpath. It overlooks the striped vineyards and yellow fields and red-orange terracotta roofs. They can just see Vacqueyras, a collection of roofs in the distance.

 

They sit in the shade on the grass and eat _foie gras pâté_ spread on baguette baked that morning, a spicy cured pork sausage she calls _saucisson_ , a local soft goat cheese called _banon à la feuille_ that’s extremely pungent, fresh figs, which are a revelation, and nectarines that aren’t are good as the ones he got at the farm stand, and another cheese he forgets the name of because they’re drinking _a lot_ of cabernet sauvignon.

 

When they’re done, he’s tipsy enough to lay his head in her lap and let her braid his hair. Her fingers comb through it first, like she’d done the other morning, and then tug a bit as she expertly weaves the strands together close to his scalp. It feels like she’s giving him rows of French braids, appropriately enough. He closes his eyes, in heaven.

 

“How the hell do you get your hair so silky?” she murmurs. “What kind of conditioner do you use?”

 

“I don’t use conditioner,” he says sleepily.

 

She hums, disgruntled. “ _Bitch_.” He chuckles at that. She works quietly for a moment, then, her voice sounding a little strange, she asks, “Does your mother have black hair like this?”

 

“Uh, no. Dark brown.” She doesn’t say anything to that. “What do you do?” he asks, changing the subject.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Like, are you in college or do you work or what?” If he weren’t so liquored up, he would feel like a right shit asking – it feels like he should know this already or have asked her before.

 

“You know what a gap year is?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I’m on my second gap year.”

 

“It’s a gap year, not gap _years_.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks, _mom_.”

 

“I’m your mom now, too, am I? I’m your brother, your daddy, your mom – which is it?”

 

“Shut up,” she says, smacking his forehead. He shouldn’t have said that, that was fucked up. Way too much wine. “You’re my bitch, is what you are.”

 

“Yes I am.”

 

“I have a place waiting for me at Imperial College London. I’m supposed to start next month.”

 

He opens his eyes and looks at the top of her forehead – that’s all he can see. “Oh. Wow. That’s a really good school, isn’t it?”

 

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

 

“I’m not.” He _is_ surprised, but it’s more like...surprise that she’s going to start so soon. That she’ll be there. And not here. That they won’t be here together anymore. “What’re you gonna study?”

 

“Aeronautical engineering.”

 

“Wow, that’s amazing.”

 

“I’m not actually an idiot, you know,” she mutters. There’s something dark in her voice, like people have been underestimating her for a very long time.

 

“I know that, Rey. I never said such a thing. Or thought it.”

 

“Mm,” she grunts. “I know.”

 

“So you’ve just been traveling around for two years?” he asks, switching gears.

 

“A bit. I pick up work now and then, if I feel like it, if I can. If I need it. Bartending, usually. Sometimes waitressing. I was a go-go dancer for a month in Ibiza last year.”

 

He almost chokes on his own spit. “A go-go dancer?”

 

“Y’know, to get people hyped up at one of those really big clubs.”

 

Yeah, he knows. He’s sort of shocked but he doesn’t know why. There’s certainly nothing wrong with it. Maybe it’s hard to square with the girl who’s about to go study aeronautical engineering. “Did you like it?”

 

“Not especially. It was hard work and I was always worried I was gonna fall off the speaker. And the punters kept flashing their junk at me from the dance floor. But I made good money. How’s your book going? I googled you. Why do you call yourself Kylo Ren? You come up with that name yourself?”

 

“Uh, yeah.”

 

“Why didn’t you just use your own name to begin with?”

 

“Because... It’s hard to explain. I put it on the first manuscript and I never took it off.”

 

“Are you ashamed of those books or something?”

 

He thinks about how to answer that. Her fingers work in his hair. “They make me good money,” he says, echoing her words. And her sentiment.

 

“I see. So what’s the new one about?”

 

Good question. He’s hardly worked on it, his obsession with his new character taking over. He tries to remember what he was typing in his outline the last time he bothered with it. He tells her that scanty amount, hardly anything, and then cops out with, “But I don’t want to spoil it for you.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry about that, darling, I won’t read it anyway,” she says off-handedly.

 

He has to laugh. At the rate he’s going, _no one_ will.

 

“You should smile more,” she says. She smooths her hand over his braids. “There. All done.”

 

“How do I look?”

 

“Like me.”

 

***

 

He’s a wee bit too drunk to drive them back home so she’ll have to. God knows how she’s not completely sloshed, she drank as much as he did. He gets on the bike behind her and wraps his arms around her and his life is entirely perfect – until she starts the bike down the road. Then his life flashes before his very eyes because she drives like an insane person, zipping down the narrow road like a mosquito, taking the turns faster than he can even think. It’s _terrifying_. Part of him finds it exciting and hot, but only a small part because the rest of him is sure they’re going to die in the famous ditch his mother always warned him about. He clings to her for dear life.

 

***

 

As he’s falling asleep that night – in his bed, safe and sound, not dead, all his bones still intact and his hair still braided – he wonders what part of town Imperial College London is in. And what the housing market is like there.

 

***

 

_They sit outside on the patio at Le Papillon in their chambray shirts and white shorts and drink grenache blanc with their grilled langoustines. The grenache blanc is cool and clean. She can only have one tiny glass so he drinks the rest of the bottle himself. He can taste citrus and fresh herbs on his tongue. At the back of his throat, he can taste the terroir of the place – the limestone-laced soil, the way the hot sun beat down on these vines two summers ago, the way the rain washed down from the olive grove above the slope these grapes grew on. It tastes like the new life now growing in his wife’s still-slim body. _

_They’re very tan from long days hiking in the Dentelles and lying by the pool and swimming naked and making love. Before coming down to the village, they’d braided each other’s long, sun-streaked hair – two thick plaits each, tight to their scalps and snaking down their necks._

_The proprietress and the sommelier think they’re brother and sister. Most everyone in Vacqueyras does, in truth. No matter how many times they insist they’re husband and wife, not brother and sister, no one seems to believe them. The village Catholic priest gives them dirty, scandalized glares. She taunts him shamelessly. “We’re sinners, Father,” she says whenever they walk past the priest in the street. “Pray for us.”_

_But they are sinners – or would be if either of them gave a damn about such things. The proprietress and the sommelier and the priest and everyone in town can see the truth somehow. It must be written all over their tan skin. It’s certainly written in their DNA and everyone can read it, seemingly. They’re brother and sister. They’re twins. They’re husband and wife. And in seven months they’ll be mother and father, too. _

_He catches the proprietress eyeing them from across the patio. She’s watching his wife sip her tiny glass of wine, something knowing and cold in the older woman’s gaze._

_And now he knows they won’t be able to stay here much longer._

 

***

 

He’s cooking dinner when he hears her come in.

 

“What’re you making?”

 

“Spaghetti and meat sauce.”

 

“Spaghetti bolognese. That’s what we call it back home.”

 

He glances over his shoulder at her and his stomach drops. Her makeup’s done up and she’s wearing a short, tight, stretchy dress with no straps and her spiky high-heeled shoes dangle off her fingers.

 

“Or just spag bol. Which sounds like some sort of plumbing part if you ask me--”

 

“You’re going out?” he blurts loudly, sounding pathetic to his own ears.

 

“Yep. My monthly visitor has finally fucked off.”

 

He stares at her, feeling sick. “Oh.” He can’t think of anything more to say that doesn’t sound entirely needy and sad.

 

“Save me some, yeah?” she says of the spaghetti. “I might have it when I get in later.”

 

“Sure,” he says flatly.

 

“Thanks, you’re a prince.” She gives him a big, dimply smile and she’s off, traipsing out. “Night-night!”

 

After he hears her car drive off, he dumps the meat sauce and half-cooked pasta down the fucking garbage disposal.

 

***

 

Thirty seconds later, he feels bad for doing that. So he makes a new batch of sauce and pasta. He doesn’t want it, though. He puts it all in the fridge for her.

 

He really is her bitch.

 

***

 

Just because he’s her bitch, however, doesn’t mean he’s giving up that easy.

 

So he doesn’t go to bed. He sits in the living room, waiting up for her. Without his shirt on. With the button on his fly undone. He wants to intercept her with whatever man she might bring home tonight. If she comes home at all. He wants to scare the man away with a very elaborate brother-sister charade. He sits on the couch thinking up increasingly disreputable ideas.

 

When he hears her car on the gravel drive out front, he picks up his Kindle and pretends to read. He hears her voice in the front hall, chattering away, her clompy shoes on the floor. And a second voice – _female_. He frowns, confused, but doesn’t look up from his e-book.

 

“Oh! You’re up!” Rey says, coming into the room.

 

He doesn’t respond for a long moment, pretending he’s finishing the sentence he’s reading. “Yeah, I felt like reading a bit,” he says, finally, lifting his gaze to her.

 

She’s kicking her shoes off and looking at him with a raised eyebrow, looking at his bare chest and his undone jeans. “I see.”

 

There’s a blonde woman, about Rey’s age he reckons, standing near the doorway. She’s a few inches taller than Rey but somehow much skinnier. She’s bony, to be honest, not healthy and strong like Rey. Maybe _she_ should be having the spaghetti in the fridge.

 

Her clothes are similar to Rey’s, her dress tight and stretchy and short and strapless, her shoes painfully high. She’s strikingly beautiful in a way that’s meant to look effortless and aloof, but Ben knows she sure as hell ain’t rolling out of bed looking like that. No, she’s clearly a model and knows what she’s doing. He’s met a lot of women in New York just like her.

 

“This is my friend Ben,” Rey tells the other girl, padding over and kneeling beside him on the couch, folding her long legs under her and flinging her arms around his shoulders. “This is Andrea,” Rey tells him, emphasizing the middle syllable. Ahn-DRAY-uh.

 

“Hi,” Ahn-DRAY-uh says, her gaze cool, disinterested. But the way she’s repeatedly, subtly turning her body from side to side is a dead giveaway – _look at me, look at me, look at me, I’m hot right?, just look at me_ , _don’t you think I’m hot?, look look look look look._

 

“We met at the club tonight. Andrea lives in Paris. She’s a model.”

 

How surprising. “Oh yeah?” he says without interest. “Did you have fun tonight?”

 

“Mmhmm. Were you waiting up for me?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Aww, you’re the sweetest, love,” she says and kisses his cheek.

 

She rests her head on his shoulder and he feels light, like everything is okay. She didn’t bring home a “daddy” tonight. Maybe things really have changed. But he also feels bad again for being so petty and jealously possessive of her. She doesn’t owe him anything. She’s young and beautiful and wanted to go out and have fun with young and beautiful people, not sit around here all night with a boring old book nerd.

 

“I thought we came to get high, yah?” Ahn-DRAY-uh says in a clipped Euro accent, looking oh-so-bored.

 

Rey looks up at him, grinning wickedly. “Yes we did.” He rolls his eyes and she laughs and leans close, murmuring lowly in his ear, giving him goosebumps, “You wanna get high with us, Ben?”

 

***

 

Ahn-DRAY-uh has rolling papers and Rey produces a plastic sandwich baggie three-quarters full of weed. It’s a _lot_ of weed. God knows where she got it from – he doesn’t ask. _He_ chooses the music, plugging his phone into the stereo and fending off the girls when they try to change it. He’s not having that thumping dance music shit in his house again.

 

Rey also produces a bottle of champagne from the back of the fridge but doesn’t bother getting glasses so they drink straight from the bottle and smoke the generous joint Rey expertly rolls and get very high indeed. Ahn-DRAY-uh even manages to stop looking bored and she and Rey dance barefoot to his jogging playlist and finish off the champagne while he watches them from the couch, his head floating somewhere near the ceiling, the mix of alcohol and THC doing its job real good.

 

Rey holds out her hands, reaching for him from across the room. “Come dance with us, Ben.”

 

He shakes his head and the room moves oddly. “I like watching you.”

 

“Yeah. I know.” She bites her lip. “I know you do.”

 

He stares at her, his gaze heavy, remembering watching her, remembering how she watched him. He stares as she moves in on the other girl, pushes close against the taller girl’s back. They dance together, move together, sway together. Rey’s hands come to rest on the girl’s skinny hips and they press closer, rubbing against each other as they move to the song.

 

Rey runs her hands up and down the girl’s sides and the girl reaches back, grabbing Rey’s hips. They’re just grinding on each other now, not really dancing, and Rey looks over at him, checking in with him. Making sure he’s watching. He is.

 

“He really likes you,” Rey says close to Ahn-DRAY-uh’s ear. “He thinks you’re hot. Don’t you, Ben?”

 

“Sure,” he answers vaguely.

 

“Do you think he’s hot?” Rey asks Ahn-DRAY-uh.

 

“Yeah,” the other girl says, looking at him, her eyes on his body.

 

“He’s super hot, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Rey’s hands slide up over the other girl’s tits and Ben’s cock twitches. “Let’s put on a show for him, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” the other girl says, turning her face to Rey’s, and then they’re kissing, wet and open and their tongues in each other’s mouths and _fuck fuck fuck_...

 

He shifts in his seat, growing hard as they make out. But then Rey slowly peels down the girl’s dress, baring her high, tight tits. Her belly-button ring. Her skinny hips. Her tiny black thong. When Rey’s little hands cup and squeeze the girl’s bare breasts, he must make some kinda noise because the girls look at him, heavy-lidded and red-lipped.

 

“You like that?” Rey asks him, glancing at his lap.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Good,” she says and peels off her own dress, kicking it away. His beautiful, insane, perfect girl isn’t wearing anything under her dress. He makes that sound again and reaches for his crotch.

 

“No, hands off,” Rey says and he stops. “You can look. But you can’t touch.”

 

He moves his hand away and grips the couch cushion. He remembers the last time she said that to him, about ten hours after he first met her, how her voice was tinged with something cruel, screwing with him. It’s different now. She’s still screwing with him but it’s different – it’s tinged with promise.

 

The girls stand there, naked and nearly so, making out some more, arms around each other, skin against skin, tongue against tongue, and he’s fucking _dying_. Rey tears her mouth away, breathing hard, and looks at him again. “You want her to go down on me?” she asks.

 

“Yeah,” he says hoarsely.

 

“You want her to eat out my wet pussy, Ben?”

 

“Yeah,” he says again, his cock throbbing. “Yeah.”

 

So Rey lies down on the coffee table, right in front of him, right at his knees, and the other girl kneels on the rug and buries her face between Rey’s smooth thighs. Ben stares where the girls are joined and he can hear the wet, sloppy, hungry, filthy sounds of the girl’s mouth and tongue going to town on Rey’s snatch. The girl slips a couple fingers inside Rey and he hears Rey groan loudly, high-pitched. His gaze travels up and he sees Rey squeezing her own tits, sees her teeth biting her swollen lip. She’s keening and groaning and he leans forward, putting pressure on his huge erection but needing to be in on this somehow.

 

He touches her forehead. “Please, Rey,” he begs, not sure what he’s begging for.

 

She grins and shakes her head. “No,” she says, keeping him at bay. She reaches out, rubs his knee. “Don’t worry, my love, we’ll take care of you. Now you wanna see me come?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

She digs her nails into his knee while she comes, her back bowing up off the wooden table, her cries sharp and loud and high. The girl between her legs sits up, wiping her mouth, and Rey flops back down, limp, legs open wide, her hips jerking quickly once, twice, three times against the table with the aftershocks. He wishes he could see her pussy clenching right now.

 

Rey props herself up on her elbows and smiles at the other girl. “Now him,” she instructs.

 

He groans, flopping back against the couch. “Rey...”

 

“He’s got a huge cock. You wanna suck his huge cock?”

 

“Yeah,” the girl says and crawls around the coffee table, closing in on him, sliding up between his knees.

 

“Rey, _please_...”

 

Rey sits up on the table and leans close to the girl, murmuring in her ear, “You’re gonna look so fucking pretty sucking his huge cock.”

 

He groans again and lets the girl undo his pants and pull them down, pull them all the way off, freeing his stiff, bare, leaking cock – because, like Rey, he’s not wearing underwear tonight.

 

He catches Rey staring at his red dick, her mouth open a little. “Fuck,” she murmurs. “Just look at you, Ben. God _damn_.”

 

He reaches for her, desperate, and she kneels again by his side on the couch and rests her head on his shoulder again. He puts his arm around her and squeezes her ass and they watch together as the other girl leans over his lap and slides her lips down over him and starts to suck his dick, her mouth full.

 

But he ends up looking at Rey’s face and imagining it’s her mouth on him somehow – that she’s both up here and down there at the same time. Her mouth is so hot and wet on him, her tongue so slick and eager. She’s so perfect.

 

“I’m close, Rey,” he groans, stroking her ass as her mouth strokes his cock. “I’m so close.”

 

“Just wait, love,” she says, her voice pitched real low. “Wait.” She touches the other girl’s hair, tugging on it slightly. The girl lifts her head, her mouth coming off, leaving him wet and pulsing and aching. “Come up here. He’s gonna fuck you.”

 

He wants to fuck Rey but she’s leaning away, reaching for something in the drawer of the side table at the end of the couch, and the girl is standing up and taking off her thong and climbing on top of him, straddling his thick thighs. Rey produces a condom, ripping open the foil, and then she’s touching his dick, her little fingers putting the condom on him, and he almost comes right then and he’ll do anything for her, anything she wants, _anything anything anything_.

 

The other girl shuffles closer and slowly lowers herself down onto his cock and mewls loudly, her face tense as she stretches around him.

 

“You’re so fucking big, Ben,” Rey growls in his ear, pressing her breasts against his side. “Big Ben,” she laughs, then adds, “God, she can barely take all of you, look at that.”

 

The girl settles, panting hard, and then slowly starts to move on top of him, starts riding his cock, her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth open. He grips her knobby hips, keeping her steady, helping her move, and her hands come up to play with her own tits. The squeeze of her tight cunt is good.

 

“Look how good you’re fucking her,” Rey murmurs, running her hand over his sweaty chest, rubbing his straining pecs then sliding down his flat belly and back up to his hot neck. “Look how beautiful you are.”

 

He’s being ripped apart, overwhelmed, over-stimulated. “I need to come, baby, _please_...”

 

“Let her come first.”

 

He groans, his head falling back against the couch, and he focuses on not coming but it’s hard. But she doesn’t make him wait too long because she’s rubbing the girl’s clit mercilessly, her fingers brushing the base of his dick as she does it. The girl rides him harder and then she’s crying out and freezes on his lap, coming inside. Rey wedges her hand down between them and touches his balls and he comes instantly, groaning loud and long, his hips shoving up hard against Rey’s hand and the girl’s cunt as he fills his condom.

 

***

 

Rey rolls another joint, smaller this time, just a little come down. They all sit together naked, smoking. The music’s off and the lights are off and Ahn-DRAY-uh falls asleep pretty quick between them on the couch, curled up against Ben’s side.

 

He and Rey finish the joint, the paper burning the only sound in the room. He’s looking at her and she’s looking at him and something’s...happening. Between them. Building. Taking root. Maybe he’s just really high. It feels like they’re touching minds somehow, like they’re connected inside.

 

So he’s not afraid or nervous or uncertain when he carefully dislodges the sleeping girl and stands up and holds out his hand to Rey. He already knows she’ll take his hand and get up and go upstairs with him to his bed. And she does. They do.

 

***

 

He turns on the small lamp by his bed and turns to her. She’s still hovering near his closed door. She’s sneaking glances at him, but she’s also glancing around the room like she’s never seen it before, like he’s changed the décor and it’s wildly interesting. She’s nervous, he realizes with surprise. His wild child, his dirty-mouthed nymph, his fierce sex goddess – she’s nervous and shy. He loves her _so_ dearly.

 

“Rey.” He holds out his hand and she slowly comes closer and takes his hand again. Her bare skin glows like burnished copper in the low light and he’s already starting to get hard, just looking at her.

 

“You’re so beautiful, Rey,” he says quietly, pulling her closer, right up against his body. Her hands rest against his chest just right. Her body fits just right against his, soft where he’s hard and curved where he’s flat. He cups her cheek in his big hand, brushes his thumb over her lips. He needs to kiss her. He leans closer. “Rey...”

 

“Did you like fucking that model?” she asks and he pauses. She’s grinning up at him, trying to look wicked and dirty but failing – her voice is too soft, her eyes too searching.

 

“Only because you were with me,” he says, stroking her cheek with his thumb. He kisses her mouth gently, sweetly, and it feels _perfect_ , it feels like everything he’s never had, and he feels her lean into it, seeking more. But he pulls away carefully and makes sure she’s looking at his face when he adds, very honestly, “I only want to be with _you_ , Rey.”

 

Her eyes scour his gaze, his face. She must find what she’s looking for because her hands slide up his chest and neck and bury themselves in his hair. She pulls him down to her and their mouths meet, their tongues slide together. She surges up against his hard, thrumming body and he clamps an arm around her waist, holding her there. They stand by the mattress and kiss and kiss, slick and hot, wet and sloppy, _needy needy needy_.

 

They’re on the bed together in moments. He’s only ever seen her be on top when she fucks, riding men like they’re horses, but for him she’s on her back and he lays half on top of her, his hard cock pressed against her hip as he explores her body with his tongue and mouth and hands and eyes. Her tits under his lips. Her salty sweat on his tongue. Her flat belly quivering under his wandering hand. Her hip rubbing against his dick. Her tight cunt wet and burning around his fingers. Her soft, achy whimpers loud in his ear as he stretches and strokes her deep inside.

 

“Ben...” she sighs, her hands tugging hard on his hair. He takes his mouth off her nipple and looks at her. She strokes his cheek. “I’m clean,” she whispers, her eyes steady and bright. His whole body tightens and buzzes and burns and he’s dizzy, knowing what she’s getting at. “I’m clean, I promise, it’s safe, we can--we can... _please..._ ”

 

His girl, lost for words. Begging him like he begged her. He kisses her hard and slowly slides his fingers out of her body. He licks his fingers clean – salty and sweet and musky and filthy. He kisses her so she can taste, too, as he settles his body between her thighs. She pulls her legs up, presses her heels into his back, spreading so wide for his aching cock.

 

He pushes into her slowly, steadily, relishing all of it, sheathing himself in her sweet, slippery body. He groans as he stuffs her full, loving the feel of her against his bare cock. She keens, high and breathy, taking all of him in. She’s absolute heaven. She’s all he’s ever wanted.

 

He buries his face against her sweaty neck and moves, sliding almost all the way out and thrusting back in deep and rough and slow, using his strong thighs and legs and belly and back and ass, using his whole body to burrow deep into hers. She mewls and groans and bites his lips and scratches his back and takes him inside over and over and over and over.

 

But it’s not long before they’re fucking hard, fast, his hips rolling and snapping against hers, their skin slapping together. They grunt helplessly with each thrust – _uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh_ – and her knees are up around his armpits and she’s braced her palms up against his knocking headboard so he doesn’t drive her skull into it. He watches her face, her bouncing tits.

 

Some dark, primitive part of him wants her to still feel all this tomorrow, still feel every inch of him inside when she walks.

 

“Ben--I’m close,” she grunts breathlessly. “I need-- _please--please—please...”_

 

He reaches down and slides his hand between their bodies and plays with her clit and shoves into her throbbing cunt harder and she’s suddenly there. She’s arching off the bed, her hips jerking hard and frantic as she comes, crying out loud and desperate. And he follows right behind, shouting incoherently and coming long and hot as she squeezes him inside.

 

They flop back down against the mattress and she’s still throbbing around him for a few moments longer while they breathe hard and cling together and come down slowly.

 

When he can move a little, he props himself up on his elbow and she stares up at him with soft, damp eyes. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair’s a mess and she’s never been more beautiful. She strokes his face and they stare at each other and don’t say anything.

 

When she has to get out of bed to take a piss, he lies there alone and can’t help but wonder if she’ll come back to him.

 

She does.

 

She presses against his side, her head on his chest, her arm flung over his belly, his arms cuddling her close. She’s _his_ now. “You’re _mine_ ,” he wants to say aloud. “No one else, Rey, not anymore. Just me. And I’m yours. Entirely.” He doesn’t say that. He doesn’t have to. He knows she feels it too, this thing between them, this connection.

 

In the morning, he’s going to ask what she thinks about him going back to London with her.

 

 

TBC


	6. Citrus

He wakes on his side, kissing Rey, their hands already sliding over each other. The room is pale and gray with early morning light and her body’s warm and soft and smooth. Her thigh hooks over his hip and he pulls her closer and finds she’s wet. He slides inside her slowly and they make love languidly, sleepily. They come beautifully and kiss and fall asleep again, messy and hooked together.

 

***

 

Later, when the sun is bright, he props himself up on his elbow so he can look at her face. He strokes her cheek with the backs of his fingers. She smiles up at him. Her hazel eyes twinkle like the pool outside must be twinkling in the hot sunshine. He swallows, nervous. “Can I ask you something, Rey?”

 

She sighs and says, “Yes I’ll go to prom with you,” sounding _so_ put-upon and rolling her eyes theatrically.

 

“Great. I’ll rent a limo and get us a room at the Holiday Inn Express.”

 

“Classy.”

 

“Nothing but the best for my girl.”

 

She laughs and tucks his hair behind his ear. “Prom is so very American, isn’t it?”

 

“I guess.”

 

“Did you go to prom?”

 

“Unsurprisingly, I did not.”

 

She frowns. “Why do you say unsurprisingly?”

 

“I wasn’t very popular in high school. Never had a girlfriend. Didn’t lose my virginity until college.”

 

Her mouth falls open a little. “Seriously?”

 

“I know, I know, I was a loser.“

 

“No, no, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” she scolds. “I meant, like... It’s just that you’re so...fucking _...hot_.” His body tightens all over at that. He presses closer to her so she can feel what she does to him. “I mean, did you go to a school for the blind or something?”

 

He chuckles and slides his hand up her side and cups her small breast, rubs his thumb under her nipple. “You wouldn’t have liked me in high school, Rey,” he says, a little sad. “You wouldn’t have given me a second look.”

 

“Yes I would’ve,” she disagrees firmly. “I would’ve.” Her hand wraps around his thick cock and she starts stroking him slowly. She bites her lip and says very softly, “You’re amazing, Ben.”

 

Jesus Christ, how did he get this fucking lucky? “So are you, Rey, _god_...” he says feverishly, his voice going shaky.

 

They kiss, deep and wet, their hands playing with each other, getting each other ready again. He’s _ravenous_ for her and if they leave this bed at all today, it’ll only be to use the toilet and eat something and then fuck on the kitchen table and maybe in the pool, too. There’s _no other reason_ for them to leave this bed today.

 

He grips her hip and is about to roll her on top of him when there’s a knock on the door right before it fucking _opens_. His panic spikes and he jerks his body over Rey to shelter her, trying to protect her from whoever’s coming it.

 

“What the _fuck--_ “ he starts.

 

It’s the gal from last night, Andrea. He eases off Rey, lays alongside her, his panic slowly subsiding. Andrea stands there in the doorway, dressed but for her shoes. “I’m going now,” she says coolly. “My taxi is here.”

 

“Thanks for the party, babes, it was super fun!” Rey says, chipper. She blows the girl a kiss but doesn’t bother to get up.

 

Andrea is looking at them and Ben sees himself and Rey through this girl’s eyes – the two of them sequestered away up here behind closed doors, tangled up in bed together, clearly having been fucking each other all night. He feels bad now because they had sex with this girl and then just left her down there alone all night. And to be honest, he actually _forgot_ about her until just now. Oy vey, that’s really shitty.

 

Andrea looks at him and he has no idea what to say. He’s briefly tempted to offer her taxi fare until he realizes that would be even shittier, wouldn’t it? So he says nothing.

 

“There’s an old man downstairs asking for you,” she says and then she’s gone, not bothering to shut the door behind her.

 

“Oh _shit_ ,” he groans, flopping onto his back. “It’s Mr. Leclere. Ugh, I totally forgot.”

 

“What?” Rey asks, snuggling up to his side.

 

“He’s bringing this new pink lemon tree today. I need to help him unload it and get it planted.”

 

“ _Pink lemons_? That’s not a thing, you big liar,” she says, smacking his chest.

 

“How do you think they make pink lemonade, sissy?”

 

“With food coloring! Obviously!”

 

“Pink lemons. I swear to god.”

 

“You’re so full of shit.”

 

“Google it!”

 

“ _You_ Google it and see how wrong you are.” He grabs her thigh and hauls her up for a kiss, but she pushes against him. “Nope. You have to go plant a fake lemon tree.”

 

“I don’t wanna go,” he whines.

 

“Monsieur Leclere can’t do all that work himself!” She smacks his chest again, all business, and rolls away. “ _I_ , however, am staying here, I’m tired,” she sighs, burrowing into his pillow, and then adds, “I like this bed, it smells like you.”

 

He groans and scoots up against her, kissing her shoulder, curling his arm around her. “I ain’t going.”

 

“I’ll be right here when you come back. And then we can fuck in the shower,” she says sleepily.

 

“Now I’m _really_ not going.”

 

“Go do some manual labor so I can lick all that manly, workingman sweat off your manly manbody.”

 

He leans over her and steals a kiss and thinks about telling her he loves her. “I’ll be back,” he promises, whispering in her ear. She smiles and hums but doesn’t open her eyes, already starting to fall asleep.

 

He gets dressed staring down at her, so beautiful in his bed.

 

“What’d you wanna ask me before?” she murmurs as he’s pulling on his shoes.

 

He stops. Her eyes are still closed. He tugs the sheet up over her. “Later,” he says softly and gives her one last kiss. “Sleep now, sissy.”

 

***

 

This is taking _forever_. And he really, really wants to go back inside and upstairs. The ground is hard and stony and he’s sweating buckets out here in the sun. He shed his t-shirt ages ago and has only got the hole for the tree half dug out. Monsieur Leclere is standing by, smoking a cigarette, and very helpfully “supervising”, giving him periodic pointers in French.

 

“ _Mon dieu_ ,” Leclere says suddenly, coughing.

 

Ben looks up from his shovel, worried the old guy’s having a heart attack or something. Instead, _Ben_ is the one about to have a heart attack because Rey is swanning past them, headed for the pool in nothing but that loose white top of hers, the one that threatens to fall completely off her shoulders. And right now, it _is_ falling off her one shoulder, exposing her breast. She couldn’t be any sexier - except that Leclere is standing right beside him staring at his girl’s naked pussy.

 

Rey calls out happily, “ _Bonjour_ , Monsieur Leclere!” and gives the old man a wave as she bounces by.

 

Possessiveness and alarm – sharp and hot – shoot through him.

 

But he has to check himself – this is France, they do things differently here, nude beaches are common, nudity isn’t a big deal, Leclere is used to this sort of thing, Rey is an exhibitionist if ever there was one, it’s _fine_.

 

But then – she doesn’t even look at Ben as she continues on down the steps to the pool.

 

Cold dread joins the alarm and possessiveness.

 

He seems incapable of looking away, or encouraging Leclere to look away, as Rey spreads her beach towel on the stone deck, shimmies off her loose top, and stretches her taut, bare body like a sleepy cat. She knows they’re watching, that’s obvious. And then like a siren she dives smoothly into the pool in one perfect, fluid movement.

 

She starts swimming around and Ben finally clears his throat, trying to get Leclere’s attention. “Monsieur Leclere, _s'il vous plaît_ ,” he says sharply, utilizing some of the French he’s managed to pick up from Rey.

 

Leclere finally looks away and is decent enough to look abashed. “ _Désolé_ , Monsieur Solo. _Pardon_.”

 

Ben goes back to digging. He’s stabbing the shovel into the rocky dirt as hard as he can, trying to take out his frustrations. But he catches Leclere glance over his shoulder at the pool a few times, prompting a lot more throat-clearing, making his blood pressure rise.

 

But then Rey is out of the pool and stretched out on her towel and she’s dangling one leg in the water, her cunt spread out to them. And when her hand reaches down there and she starts touching herself, teasing her opening and rubbing her clit, he reaches his absolute limit.

 

He drops his shovel and goes down there and stands at Rey’s feet, trying to block Leclere’s view as best he can. She blinks up at him and grins, her fingers dipping inside herself. “Hi.”

 

“Let’s go inside, baby. We’ll take that shower now, how’s that sound?”

 

“No, fuck me here, I’m ready,” she whines, pulling her fingers out and sitting up. “I miss your cock, daddy.”

 

It’s like she’s just slapped him.

 

“ _Don’t_ ,” he says way too sharply.

 

She gets on her knees before him and reaches for his pants, starts unbuttoning his fly. “Feed me, daddy. I’m _so_ _hungry_.”

 

He grabs her wrists, holding her still. “Don’t call me that. _Please_. I don’t like it, okay? You _know_ I don’t like it.”

 

“What’s the matter, daddy? Wasn’t I a good girl for you last night?”

 

He stares at her. “Why are you doing this?”

 

She shrugs and says lightly, “Because I’m desperate and pathological. Because I’m a mess and I don’t even realize it.”

 

That cold dread comes back as an icy river, filling him entirely.

 

“Men lord over me and I’m just their victim, their instrument,” she goes on casually. “I’m not a liberated woman, I’m a harpy with raging daddy issues who doesn’t know what I really want or that I’m actually totally unhappy and trying desperately to hold old men’s interest with my body.” She’s glaring up at him, her eyes cold now. “Sound about right?”

 

He lets go of her wrists. He can barely speak. “You read my notebooks?” he chokes out stupidly.

 

“I got bored upstairs waiting around to get some cock in my ass,” she says, dismissive and cruel. “And it’s not like you _hid_ them. I just loved your idea about a series of short stories about me. Odd how there was almost nothing in there about space wizards and alien dinosaurs.”

 

He doesn’t know what to say, so he starts saying absolute _shit_. “It’s just...notes, it’s not...it’s just trying to...understand, but it’s not...it became something...else.” He swallows thickly. “It’s just a story,” he finishes lamely.

 

She’s staring up at him like he’s literally a talking asshole. Then she lies back on her towel and wriggles a little, getting comfortable. She closes her eyes. “You’re in my sun.”

 

He crouches down, touches her ankle. “I’m so sorry, Rey, I’m sorry--“

 

She kicks his hand away. “Go fuck yourself, Ben,” she interrupts, dismissing him.

 

He walks away on wobbly legs. He feels sick. He feels, not like he’s _on_ a rollercoaster, but like he’s being dragged along behind one. A few hours ago they were in love, weren’t they?

 

He sends Leclere home. The tree doesn’t get planted.

 

***

 

She goes out that night and he gets drunk and goes quietly insane. He wants to drag her home and fuck her and make her love him again. But he knows he can’t do any of those things. And he feels disgusting, ashamed of himself for thinking and feeling that way. He feels like a monster. He _is_ a monster. She’s better off without him.

 

 

TBC


	7. Freaks

 

 

He wakes up smelling her body. He murmurs her name and rolls over, reaching for her. But the bed is empty next to him. And then he remembers – in his drunkenness he came into her room and fell asleep. He’s smelling her, sweet and sweaty, on the pillow, the sheets. He groans, disappointed, and presses his face deeper into the pillow.

 

He can hear music from downstairs, not overly loud. But it makes his stomach clench and twist, knowing what it likely means. He rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling. It’s still dark – it must be really late. He’s not sure what to do. _If_ he should do anything. What, go down there and watch? The thought makes him feel like vomiting. Go down there and break it up? He can’t do that, no matter how much he wants to.

 

He gets up. He’ll go to his own bed and feel shitty and sick and miserable and hateful there, that’s what he’ll do. If she comes up here and finds him in her bed, she’ll freak out.

 

He detours to the bathroom for a piss. It takes all his strength not to detour right on down the stairs. When he comes out of the bathroom, however, the music is in a lull and he hears a voice downstairs, a man’s, say, “Turn her over. Fucking whore.”

 

Everything goes red and black inside of him.

 

And then he’s in the living room with no memory of actually having gone down the stairs.

 

Rey is naked and on her hands and knees on the coffee table.

 

There’s a naked man fucking her in the ass.

 

There’s a naked man fucking her mouth.

 

There’s a naked man on the couch with his phone out, recording the other men fucking her.

 

And everything is a mad frenzy in his head and outside of it.

 

The phone is smashing into a hundred bits against the stone fireplace.

 

He’s shoving the men off Rey and he’s breaking one of their noses and now there’s blood on his fist.

 

Someone’s shouting, “What the _fuck_!”

 

He’s kneeling down and taking hold of Rey and sitting her up on the coffee table. “Jesus, Rey,” he’s gasping, panicking. His heart is racing. “I’m calling the police.”

 

And she’s looking at him steadily with glassy, weird eyes, and she says calmly, “Don’t worry, it’s not like that.” And she’s leaning over and she’s snorting up a line of white powder from the back of a magazine on the coffee table. She’s wiping at her nose and asking him, “You gonna party with us? Or just watch?”

 

“Rey--“

 

“Who the hell is this asshole?” one of the men butts in, barking at them.

 

And he’s jumping to his feet and rounding on the man and slamming his fist into his face. “ _I'm her fucking brother_!”

 

The men are staring at him like he’s an animal and she’s telling them, “My twin brother. He likes to watch. Sometimes we fuck, though.”

 

And a man is grabbing him from behind, trying to pin his arms, but he _is_ an animal, he’s a raging fucking bull, and he’s fighting off all three of them, bloodying their faces and his fists, grabbing the fireplace poker and swinging it sharply and wildly and catching one of them in the arm and one of them in the leg and the men finally get the hint and fuck off out of the house without the broken phone but shouting over their shoulders at them, “Psycho fucking _freaks_!”

 

And then it’s quiet.

 

The coffee table is in pieces.

 

The lamp and the side table and a few vases are smashed and there’s a big hole in the plastered wall.

 

They stand there looking at each other.

 

And there’s some man’s cum sliding down the inside of her leg and also some on her chest and she’s saying, “Well you were right--“

 

“Rey--“

 

“--I’m exactly what you said I am.”

 

He stomach drops to his shoes and he wants to throw himself at her feet. “ _No_. I was wrong, I was dead wrong, I’m sorry--“

 

“And do you think I’m a slut now?”

 

“No.”

 

“Look at me. I’m a slut, I’m a whore, I’m disgusting--”

 

“ _No_. Never.”

 

“Look at what I let them do to me.” Her voice cracks.

 

“Did they hurt you?”

 

“No, I’m just a fucking whore, is all.” Her eyes are wet.

 

He steps toward her, a jerky, lumbering stagger. “ _No you aren’t_.”

 

“That’s what you’re thinking right now.”

 

“I’m not. I love you.”

 

“Don’t be so stupid.”

 

“I love you.”

 

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

 

“I do.” He steps even closer. “I know I fucked up, I know it, I’m sorry.”

 

She looks away and tears slide down her face. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

 

“I am. I’m sorry.” He can smell other men on her, acrid and bitter. He touches her, rests his hands on her arms lightly. So she can get away. “I love you.”

 

“Then you’re a fucking fool,” she spits, glaring at him. “And a liar.”

 

“I shouldn’t have written about you like that. I shouldn’t have done that, it wasn’t fair.” He slides his hands up and rests them on her shoulders lightly. So she can shrug him off and push him away. “What I was doing, I--I was using you for my own purposes. _I’m_ the disgusting one. You should hate me.”

 

“Don’t worry, I do.” She blinks and more tears fall.

 

He slides his hands up her neck and touches her face lightly, brushing away her tears gently. “I love you, Rey,” he murmurs softly.

 

She shakes her head fiercely. “I fucking hate you,” she says and slams her fist into his chest _hard_ , making his heart thud off-beat. And then she leans against his chest and their arms come around each other and he feels pieced back together again.

 

***

 

They stand in the shower for awhile, just holding each other, just letting the water pour over them. He strokes her hair and she strokes his back and they’re perfect again.

 

Eventually she reaches for the soap and they wash each other’s skin squeaky clean.

 

He washes her hair, careful not to tug on the tangles. “You need conditioner,” he murmurs, teasing her.

 

She slaps him across the face – not _too_ hard, but kinda too hard, her anger still leaking out. “Fuck you, asshole,” she says. “With your shampoo commercial hair.”

 

She makes him kneel down in the hard tub so she can wash his hair and she’s _not_ gentle, scrubbing vigorously and digging her fingers into his scalp and pulling his hair and jerking his head around and he loves it.

 

The water starts running cold so they get out, dry off. He asks her to braid his hair so she does. He sits on the laundry hamper and she’s quiet as she weaves his hair into a tight French braid. He looks at their reflections in the big mirror over the vanity. His skin still isn’t quite as dark as hers but he likes how their bodies look together. Fit and strong, smooth and lean, natural and bare, perfectly formed and perfectly matched, made from the same stuff. They look beautiful together. They look like gods.

 

“Do you want me to do yours?” he asks when she’s nearly done.

 

“You don’t know how, big bruv,” she murmurs, wrapping an elastic around the ends of his hair.

 

“You can teach me.”

 

“Not tonight. Let’s just go to bed.” And she gives him a weak, weary smile, looking drained.

 

So he scoops her up, cradling her to his chest. He carries her down the hall to his room. “I’ll learn so I can braid yours next time so we’ll be twins,” he tells her and she hums against his neck.

 

They snuggle up together in bed and he gives her a gentle kiss, not asking for more than that, and finds she’s crying again. His chest tightens. “Are you okay, sissy? _Did_ they hurt you?“

 

“No, I’m okay, I promise.” She gives him that weary smile again but there’s sadness in it, too. “It’s just the cocaine. I’m tired.”

 

“Okay.” But he’s still worried. He kisses her again, tasting her salt. “I’m _so_ sorry--“

 

“Shh...shh...” She presses his face against her neck and curls her arms around him, holding him. He settles against her and she strokes his braided hair until he falls asleep.

 

***

 

He rouses, feeling her wriggle away from his body. She’s sitting up, about to get out of bed. He reaches, touches her back, and she looks down at him. It’s almost morning, just the lightest gray at the window. “Whatsa matter?” he mumbles, still half-asleep.

 

“Just going to the loo, I’ll be right back.”

 

“M’kay.”

 

“Go back to sleep, love.”

 

“M’kay.”

 

His eyes slip closed, he can’t keep them open. He’s already falling asleep again. He feels her lean over. She murmurs in his ear, “I do love you, Ben. You know that, right?”

 

He thinks he’s dreaming. “I know,” he mumbles, smiling. “I love you, too.”

 

She kisses his cheek and then she’s gone.

 

***

 

He wakes again. It feels like it can’t have been that long since she went to the bathroom. Except... It’s bright in the room now. His phone says it’s late morning. He gets out of bed, doesn’t bother putting clothes on.

 

She’s not in the bathroom, unsurprisingly. He didn’t think she would be.

 

He goes downstairs. She’s always up before him, always has to have her coffee first thing.

 

She’s not in the kitchen. There’s no coffee.

 

She’s not outside having a morning swim.

 

He runs to the front door. Her car isn’t parked in front of the house.

 

He can no longer ignore the sinking ache in his guts, the rising panic in his chest.

 

Maybe she just went to the store. Maybe they needed milk or eggs or something. She’s at the store. That’s all it is. No biggie.

 

He runs upstairs.

 

Down the hall.

 

Pushes into her bedroom, nearly taking the door off its hinges.

 

All her stuff is gone. He tears the dresser drawers open – empty. Closet – empty. Under the bed – nothing but dust.

 

She’s gone.

 

He knows she’s gone.

 

He runs downstairs. He runs outside and down the drive and down to the road and down the road half a mile, naked, hair still braided, the gravel and dirt and asphalt digging into his bare feet. He must look insane.

 

Maybe she’s only just driven off, maybe he can still catch up to her, he’ll catch up and throw himself in her path and beg her not to go, beg her to stay, make her stay, she has to stay, why is she leaving him, where is she going, why is she going, _why has she gone_?

 

Of course he doesn’t catch up to her. She’s gone.

 

He stands in the road, sickly realizing he doesn’t even have her phone number – he’s never had to call her before.

 

She’s gone. He’s lost her. He doesn’t know what to do. He can’t move. He’s nearly run over by a truck coming around the bend in the road.

 

***

 

Only when he’s back in his room, sitting on the bed feeling hollowed out, does he notice the folded sheet of paper sitting on top of his laptop on the desk, his name written across it.

 

He stares at it for a long time, torn in two. He wants nothing more than to read it immediately. And the very last thing he wants to do in this world is read it.

 

He picks it up with shaking fingers and unfolds it.

 

“ _Dearest Ben..._

_“There’s something I haven’t told you. I didn’t know how to say it in person, but I had to tell you, so here it is._

_“I slept with your father. It started when I was fifteen. It stopped when I was seventeen. It only stopped because my mother found out. That’s why they broke up. She kicked him out and told him to never come back and he never did. I haven’t seen him since, though, as I said, we do keep in touch now and then._

_“You need to know that I seduced him, not the other way around. He didn’t ‘groom’ me or force me into anything. I know it’s hard to understand, but that’s what happened._

_“It hurt when Han left and didn’t come back, so when I met you here, I guess I was bound and determined to take out my anger on you. I sure as hell never expected to fall in love with you._

_“‘Daddy issues’ – such a cliché, right? But you were right about me. It’s killing me to say this, because part of me is refusing to let my sex life be reduced to such a stupid cliché – why can’t I just like what I like, want what I want?? But in all fairness you read me like a book, you asshole. You put the truth right in front of my face. That’s why I got so angry, to be honest. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to see myself._

_“That’s why I had to leave. I needed to tell you the truth, what happened with your father, but I didn’t want to see your disgust for me, I didn’t want to see you hate me for it, not after knowing what it was like to be loved by you._

_“There’s no way to apologize enough or earn your forgiveness, but please believe that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. For everything._

_“You deserve all the best things in life, all the success and happiness there is in this world. You’re a wonderful writer and I believe in you, always._

_“With all my love._

_“Rey.”_

***

 

He vomits into the bathroom sink because he can’t make it all the way to the toilet.

 

***

 

“Benny! How you doing, kid? How’s Provence--”

 

“Give me Rey’s phone number. Right now.”

 

“...You, uh, you met Rey?”

 

“Do you have her number or not?”

 

“Why do you need it?”

 

“Give it to me.”

 

“Gimme a sec here.” His father manages to not hang up on him while he’s getting the number. “Why do you need her number, Ben?”

 

“Did you fuck Rey?”

 

The long silence that follows confirms what he already knows.

 

“Fuck you.”

 

“Ben--“

 

“She was a child.”

 

“No, it wasn’t like that--“

 

“ _Fuck you_! She was underage. She was your _daughter_!”

 

“She wasn’t, not really--“

 

He hangs up on his father, certain that’s the last time they’ll ever speak.

 

***

 

“Rey, it’s Ben. Please come home. I don’t hate you, I could _never_ hate you. I only love you. You’re only perfect and amazing. Come home and everything will be okay again, I promise. Please come home. Please.”

 

***

 

“It’s Ben again. You probably know that. Please call me back. Just talk to me. I don’t know if you heard my earlier messages. Or read my texts. I hope you did. You’re everything to me, you know that? I need you, Rey. Let’s just talk, okay? We’ll sort all this out. Call me back. I love you.”

 

***

 

“It’s me again. I...I spoke to my father earlier. I mean, that’s how I got your number. I want to kill him, Rey. _He’s_ the disgusting one. He makes me fucking sick. He’s a fucking bastard, he always has been. I can’t go back to New York because if I do I’ll fucking kill him, I swear to god. I just... I-I sorta just trashed the house. It’s his house so I fucking trashed it. Fuck him.”

 

***

 

“I know everything’s really fucked up, I get that. And I know why you don’t want to talk to me or see me, and I understand, I really do. I’ve always... What Han did, I’m sorry that happened, Rey. I know you said you seduced him, but he shouldn’t have done that to you. He was an adult – supposedly. He should’ve controlled himself. He was your _father_ and he betrayed you. _Entirely_. I hate him for that. I _hate_ him. And--and I know you said I was right about you, the things I wrote, but I betrayed you, too. Like father, like son. I don’t blame you for getting as far away from me as possible. I’ve always had too much of my father in me, I think. I destroyed my notebooks, I burned them in the fireplace. Well, they’re still burning, actually. I’m watching them burn. And I deleted what was on my computer. We can let the past die, kill it if we have to, that’s the only way to--“

 

The voicemail system cuts him off there.

 

***

 

“It’s late. I can’t sleep though. I’ll stop bothering you, I’ll stop calling. This’ll be my last message, okay? Just... Let me know you’re all right. Text me back, let me know you’re not dead in a ditch somewhere. Just a word. Or a letter, one letter. An emoji. Even if it’s the one that looks like a pile of shit. I won’t send you a hundred texts back, I promise. I’ll leave you alone, just...just... _please_. I’m sorry, Rey. Take care of yourself out there. You’re the one who deserves all the best things in life. All the happiness and love. And I believe in you, too. _Always_. Good night, my love. God, I really hope this _is_ your phone number.”

 

 

TBC.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Twelve Minutes and Twelve Months and Twelve Hours

 

Twelve minutes after his last voicemail, he gets a text back. One emoji. The smiley pile of shit. She’s not dead in a ditch somewhere, at least. He’s so damn relieved he starts crying. That’s not really the only reason he’s crying.

 

He said he would leave her alone. So he does. He stares at his phone until the sun comes up, hoping another text comes through. None does.

 

***

 

When it’s clear she’s not coming back, he leaves. He tells Monsieur Leclere where he’s going, just in case Rey turns up.

 

***

 

He goes to Tokyo. It’s far away and completely different from both France and New York and that’s what he wants.

 

He arranges for his townhouse in Brooklyn to be sold. The estate agent takes care of everything - clears the place out, sells the furniture, puts his stuff into storage.

 

During the day, he holes up in his hotel room and pounds out the Star Warfare novel as fast as possible, forcing himself to do it. At night he goes to noodle bars and yakitori bars and sushi bars and sake bar – lots of sake bars. Lots of sake.

 

He starts noticing things: A vending machine in a public men’s bathroom that sells women’s underwear. Men at newsstands openly looking at magazines that exclusively feature close-ups of vaginas. Normal-looking clubs that let women in for free but only if they go to the upper bar where the floor is made of clear Plexiglass so the people (men) downstairs can look up their skirts.

 

The same day he emails his completed manuscript to his editor, he leaves Tokyo with a bad taste in his mouth.

 

***

 

He goes back to France. To Paris.

 

He books a room at the Four Seasons for two weeks, expecting to move on after that. He doesn’t move on. Instead he buys an apartment in Montmarte and has all his Brooklyn stuff taken out of storage and shipped over.

 

His editor and his agent get mad because he’s killed off all his central characters and ended the Star Warfare series once and for all. He refuses to back down from that. He’s not contractually obligated to keep writing those books so there’s nothing they can do. The editor starts sending him notes and he goes back to work.

 

He takes French lessons.

 

At night he goes to cafes and bars and drinks a lot of wine and whisky and sometimes absinthe and searches the dark recesses of his psyche for a new story, a new idea. He wanders the warren of unfamiliar streets and watches life and wonders which bars Hemingway used to drink in.

 

Every day, he thinks about getting the Eurostar to London and wandering the halls of Imperial College London and the streets of the city until he finds Rey. He doesn't even know if she’s actually back there or not, but the impulse to find out is strong.

 

Instead he forces himself to chat up a blonde waitress named Lucie at a café he frequents on the Rue des Abbesses, using the excuse that he needs her help to practice his French. He makes himself ask her to dinner. They go to dinner. Lucie seems to enjoy his company – god knows why, he can’t remember saying anything interesting. She invites him up to her apartment for coffee after. He drinks her coffee. She kisses him. He explains that he thinks she’s a lovely woman but that he’s still trying to get over losing someone he loved very deeply and doesn’t want to give her any false hope. Lucie says she can help and takes off her blouse. They have sex.

 

It doesn’t help. He feels shitty. He doesn’t go back to that café.

 

He carries on alone. He finds a fragile stasis of work and drink, drink and work. He stops thinking about getting on the Eurostar every day – and only thinks about it every other day. Something intriguing starts to take shape in his head – a new story idea. By the time the Star Warfare book is going to the printers and the book tour is being arranged, he’s already working on a new book. Literary fiction, though. No more sci-fi. No more Kylo Ren. And the book’s not about Rey.

 

His agent emails him the schedule for the book tour. New York at the end of July and the final date in London in August. It scares the shit out of him.

 

That same night, he lumbers back to the café where Lucie works. She smiles at him – god knows why, he’s a piece of shit. She brings him a bottle of wine and he drinks it. She brings him another bottle of wine and he works on that until her shift ends. She takes his drunk ass back to her apartment and they have terrible sex. He apologizes and goes home when they’re done.

 

***

 

The tour starts in Tokyo, of all places. He puts on his Kylo Ren mask and does interviews as a darker, more brooding, highly aloof version of himself. He does a book reading and signing and there are a _shit ton_ of people there. It surprises him. The last Star Warfare novel is a way bigger deal than he realized it would be.

 

***

 

In Los Angeles, he’s forced to meet with the studio people who bought the film rights to all the Star Warfare books and are in the process of developing them into a franchise. They’re contractually obligated to credit Kylo Ren as an executive producer on the films and pay him a ton of money for the privilege – all his agent’s doing. And they’ve _already_ paid him a Himalayan mountain of money for the rights. The cash is already in the bank, so he doesn’t bother being nice to them, but they eat it up – they love all that Kylo Ren bullshit.

 

***

 

Interview by interview, book signing by book signing, he wends his way back to New York. Deep summer. Hotter and more humid than hell – he’s reminded of how much he doesn’t miss this place.

 

He meets his mother for dinner. It’s the first time he’s seen her or spoken to her since he Skyped her from Tokyo last fall and told her everything. _Everything_.

 

She looks older and she says she hasn’t seen Han since she kicked him out, but Ben isn’t sure he believes her. Han Solo has always been her only weak spot. It’s _infuriating_.

 

His mom asks if he’s still in love with “that Rey person”. He almost walks out right then, not liking her tone one bit. Instead he changes the subject quickly, telling her to tell Han to stay away from him while he’s in town.

 

He escapes the city without committing patricide.

 

***

 

“The Dragon King Birfolg was having a nightmare, as usual, plagued by the Prophecies of the Samose of Blynsynope. He thrashed and clawed, snorted and roared in his sleep.

 

“Lyria, his Mundurian concubine, stood naked by the far side of the bed, away from her master’s great claws. Her full, round breasts heaved in the starlight filtering in from the window. She waited for her moment.

 

“Outside in the ship’s corridor, the High Chamberguards smirked at each other knowingly, imagining just what the Dragon King was getting up to in there with the buxom, beautiful, slender sex slave. Everyone knew Mundurian concubines were the most prized creatures in the galaxy. Their skills in the art of pleasure were unparalleled, it was said. And with their regenerative abilities, one could do _anything_ to them without fear of damaging the goods permanently. It was said.

 

“What was not said, however, what was not _known_ about Lyria and her matriarchal clan from the Ylorn Mountains of Munduria, was that they were traitors to the Empire of the Dragonborn and born assassins. What was not known was that Lyria was a spy sent to the Dragon King’s bed for one purpose: to end the galactic war once and for all.

 

“She raised her arm high, plasma sword in hand. She ignited the beam. The heat and the hiss of the plasma were enough to rouse the Dragon King from his restless slumber. His beady eyes opened to the sight of his naked property with a burning sword. He roared in rage and Lyria quickly swung her arm down. His roar was cut off as the plasma sword cut off his head.

 

“All was still and silent, but for the sizzle of cauterized flesh. For the moment, all was well. But the hard part was just about to begin for Lyria – escape from an Imperial man-o’-war.”

 

Ben closes the book on the lectern. The audience crammed into the ground floor of the Waterstones near Piccadilly Circus begins clapping enthusiastically. It’s standing-room only, all the folding chairs filled, people jammed into the aisles. They’re even three deep up on the balcony, people leaning over the railing to see and hear him read aloud.

 

His gaze skims over the audience – _not_ looking for one particular face in the crowd. No. He’s thinking about the book signing that’s following this and how his hand is going to hurt tonight and how he’ll have to procure some more ibuprofen on his way back to the hotel and what he should order from room service for dinner.

 

He certainly hasn’t been looking for that particular face since the moment he stepped foot in London.

 

His head has definitely _not_ been on a swivel for the past two days.

 

His gaze doesn’t search restlessly for that face when he’s walking down the street and riding in taxicabs and having lunch with a Vanity Fair writer at the Ivy and giving a television interview at the BBC and sitting for five hours outside the Science Museum that just happens to be across the street from Imperial College London’s engineering building. Definitely not.

 

***

 

If he weren’t an asshole, he might find it gratifying to see strangers dressed up in their interpretation of the characters from his books. Instead he finds it kind of sad. Especially when they’re like the next man who toddles up to the signing table.

 

The man is, like, _fifty_. And he seems to be dressed as the Dragon King Birfolg himself – he’s wearing a somewhat elaborate foam rubber dragon costume with a cape and a plastic crown. To Ben, he looks less like a dragon king, whatever that might look like, and more like the fat dinosaur dad from that old sitcom, the one with that annoying baby dinosaur who had some stupid catchphrase.

 

The man is smiling expectantly, perhaps waiting to be praised for his sartorial efforts. Ben only wants to ask how he got up from the Tube in that costume – he doesn’t seem able to move his legs very much.

 

“I loved the part about Lyria’s regenerative abilities, Mr. Ren,” the man says eagerly as Ben signs his book. And then he asks just as eagerly, like the answer is _super_ important to him, “Does that mean if you choked her out while you had sex with her, choked her to _death_ I mean, she would come back to life? Or would she just stay dead?”

 

Ben’s Sharpie stills on the page and he looks up at the fat dinosaur, glaring at him, disgusted. He’s about to tear into the man, rip him a second asshole in the middle of his fat face, when a voice behind the dinosaur answers sharply, loudly, “Lyria would wake from the dead and kick your fat face inside out, you disgusting fuck.”

 

Dinosaur Man turns his girth around to see who said that. Ben looks, too, already deciding he’ll comp this mystery person’s copy of the book.

 

And there. Glaring at Dinosaur Man and smirking like she’s ready for a fistfight. The face he’s been looking for. The face he’s not seen in a year.

 

“Lyria would rip your saggy balls off and shove them so far up your ass, they’d pop your mouth. You pathetic, sad, incel _cunt_ ,” Rey says vividly.

 

Dinosaur Man’s mouth is hanging open and he looks to Ben for some reason, as if he expects him to come to his defense. “She’s right,” Ben says plainly, working hard not to laugh.

 

Dinosaur Man sputters a bit, doesn’t seem to know what to do, just standing there in his foam rubber. Ben finishes scribbling down his signature and says, “Here, I’ll inscribe this for you.” He writes very neatly at the top of the page, saying aloud, “‘Best wishes, you pathetic, sad--“ He looks up at Rey and asks deliberately, “What was it again?”

 

“Pathetic, sad, incel cunt,” she provides. “I-n-c-e-l.”

 

“’Incel cunt,’” he repeats. He adds a jaunty exclamation point at the end and snaps the book shut and holds it out for Dinosaur Man. Who actually takes it. And toddles silently away to go pay £19.99 for it.

 

And then.

 

And then.

 

She’s right in front of him.

 

He could reach out and touch her.

 

She’s wearing black jeans and a loose, worn-out Metallica t-shirt, her hair in a messy ponytail. She’s _so_ beautiful. He’s dumbstruck.

 

After twelve months, his memory of her had blurred and faded a bit, it seems, because standing here now she’s fucking hi-def 1080p 4K Technicolor IMAX Cinemascope, more vibrant than the rest of the world around her, more real than reality. She seems to glow and still the very air.

 

She’s handing him a copy of his book. He’s taking it, hardly aware of what he’s doing. “Can you sign my book for me, Mr. Ren?” she asks, grinning mischievously.

 

He opens the book. He clears his throat and tries to focus on being a functioning human. “To whom should I sign it?” he asks, playing along.

 

“Oh, just your signature is fine, Mr. Ren,” she says brightly. “I’m just going to sell it on eBay anyway.”

 

He hears some fans in line behind her murmur disapprovingly at that, but Ben laughs out loud.

 

He scribbles his name but then writes an inscription anyway. It takes a bit of time.

 

“ _I’m your biggest fan, Rey, literally and figuratively. With all my love, now and always and forever - Ben. P.S. I’m contractually obligated to do this signing until five o’clock today but do you want to get a coffee with me afterwards?”_

 

He doesn't shut the book, just hands it back to her open. She reads the inscription and her gaze snaps up to meet his. He stares at her, hopeful and silently pleading. She stares back. He holds his breath, his heart stopped.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Ren, that’s very kind.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“And yes.”

 

His heart thuds and lifts. “Yes?”

 

“Yes.”

 

***

 

They walk up to Soho. He resists the urge to take her hand.

 

She takes him to a cake shop and they sit at a table and eat cake and drink tea instead of coffee.

 

They’re quiet at first, a little awkward. Like they don’t know what to say to each other. It feels like there’s _so much_ to say.

 

“Are you back in New York?” she asks after a time, going first.

 

“No, no. I actually live in Paris now. In Montmarte.”

 

“Wow. Nice. Do you like it?”

 

As long as he stays away from sad, drunken hook-ups. “I like pretending I’m a shit Ernest Hemingway. Did you start college?” he asks, thinking about his stalkery afternoon outside the Science Museum.

 

“Uh, no. I keep deferring.”

 

Well that was a waste of an afternoon. “Deferring? Why?”

 

She shrugs, pokes at her chocolate cake. “It doesn’t feel like something I can focus on yet.”

 

“Why not?”

 

She shrugs again and asks, “What have you been up to?”

 

“I’m, um...I’m working on a new book,” he admits.

 

She looks a bit wary, very likely remembering the thing he was working on last summer. “Science fiction?”

 

“No. No more of that. Literary fiction. Under my own name.”

 

“What’s it about, then?”

 

He takes a sip of his tea. “A man who kills his father.” Her eyebrow goes up at that. “When he was a teenager, I mean. And he went to prison for it and has recently been paroled. That’s where the story starts, actually, when he gets out. So he’s trying to start over, build a new life, deal with his past. He moves to Paris and drinks too much and makes bad choices. That’s as far as I’ve got so far. The bad choices.”

 

She nods slowly, knowingly, reading him like a...well, like a book. “So, light comedy.”

 

“Fluffy as a puppy.”

 

They finish their cake and tea and sit there and she asks about his book tour and he tells her about it, the cities he’s been to, the film people in Los Angeles. He skims quickly over his visit to New York.

 

The cake shop is closing and now it’s time for dinner, since they’ve already had dessert. She takes him to a sushi restaurant she likes a few streets over. It’s very authentic, he finds – narrow and small and crowded. They order one of those big, ridiculous wooden boats piled with sushi. He expertly chooses a bottle of sake for them to share.

 

“It’s good, it’s my favorite,” he tells her.

 

“You’re a sake expert now?”

 

So he tells her all about his time in Tokyo – the good, the bad, and the misogynistic.

 

They eat too much and then wander around Soho and Piccadilly and Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square, working off the food, digesting, looking at stuff, chatting, dodging tourists.

 

They drink beer at a pub, standing outside with businessmen and theatergoers because the evening’s nice and the pub is too hot inside.

 

He asks what she’s been getting up to in London, but she only shrugs and says “not much” and starts peppering him with questions, asking about his move to Paris, what he does for fun there. He doesn’t tell her about his burgeoning drinking problem and having sex with another woman. He tells her about his neighborhood and the museums he’s been to and the books he’s read and his French lessons.

 

He practices French with Rey and she’s mildly impressed and keeps correcting his grammar. And pronunciation.

 

“When are you going back to Paris?” she asks in French.

 

“Tomorrow afternoon,” he answers in French.

 

“ _Sur l’Eurostar_?”

 

“ _Oui_.”

 

“Oh.”

 

The pub closes at eleven and he suggests going down to the Thames, so they do. Then she suggests they cross over Waterloo Bridge to the south bank, so they do. They wander along the pedestrian walkway by the river and the last of the restaurants and bars close down and the tourists thin out. But neither of them suggests saying goodnight yet.

 

“Where do you live?” he asks.

 

“Islington.”

 

“Like, with roommates?”

 

“No, I’m back at my mother’s house.”

 

“How’s that going?”

 

“Um... It’s not ideal.”

 

“Why not?

 

“We don’t have a brilliant relationship. We never have. Even before what happened with...with...”

 

The way her eyes flick to his and away again, he knows she’s talking about what happened with his father. “Why not?” he asks, scooting around the Han of it all.

 

She shrugs and he leaves it there. She’s not telling him something, he can tell. She’s hardly spoken about what she’s been doing these past twelve months, other than not going to school. It troubles him.

 

“Are you still hungry, big brother?” she asks.

 

He’s _not_ but he says he is. Because he doesn’t want to part ways with her yet (ever). “Is anything still open?” he says, glancing around. They’ve crossed back over the river but he’s not sure where they are - no one’s around and all the shops are closed. Unlike New York, this city seems to put on its jim-jams and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

 

“I know a place, not far,” she says. Of course she does. She takes his hand and his tummy flips over. She leads the way and he keeps looking down at their hands, how hers has all but disappeared in his.

 

They walk to Chinatown, which is a little bit livelier, and she leads him to some random green door tucked in between a traditional medicines shop and an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet.

 

She lets go of his hand and they climb the narrow, creaky stairs to the next floor, which is full of people eating dim sum and singing bad karaoke at one in the morning. It’s _really_ loud but smells really delicious. He’s hungry again.

 

But Rey leads him away, down a side hall and through a non-descript door and up a rear staircase that’s narrower and creakier than the first.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“The secret all-hours bar,” she says. “We can talk there.”

 

The secret bar is quiet, dim, cozy. Everything is dark red – the walls, the furniture, the carpet, the cushions, the curtains. She tells him it used to be an opium den in the early 1900s. They order dim sum and tiki drinks and hole up together in a cubby in the corner.

 

He notices immediately that she’s still peppering him with questions and teaching him French verbs and French slang and telling him anecdotes about her life from before they met and generally trying to distract him. She’s still not talking about what she’s been doing since she left him in Provence.

 

“Rey? Can I ask you something?” he interrupts eventually.

 

She looks at him. “You said that before, but you never did ask me anything. Remember?” He does. Everything went to shit that day and he never got back to it. “What were you going to ask me then?”

 

She’s doing it again – trying to distract him, change the subject. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I want to ask you something _now_. It’s... It might not be easy.”

 

“Okay...”

 

“Did...did something happen this past year?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You keep changing the subject when I ask about stuff, what you’ve been doing.” He licks his lips, nervous. Something’s been niggling away in the back of his mind all night and he has to ask. “Rey, did you--did you get pregnant?”

 

Her mouth falls open a little and she stares at him. “Jesus Christ, Ben, what a thing to ask. _No_. I didn’t.”

 

“Well, it _could’ve_ happened, it’s not outside the realm of possibility, is it?”

 

She presses her lips together, clearly annoyed. But then she sighs, relenting. “I guess not. But hell no, I didn’t get pregnant.”

 

He’s relieved, but not wholly. “Was it something else then? You can tell me anything, you know.”

 

She sighs again and plays with her tiki cup. It’s shaped like a pineapple. “Nothing _happened_. Honestly. Whatever terrible scenario you’re cooking up in that enormous head of yours, it’s not that. I’ve been seeing a therapist. That’s all. I don’t really like admitting it.”

 

“Oh. Well. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I’ve seen a couple therapists in my time.”

 

“You have?”

 

“Yeah, back in New York.”

 

“Did it help?”

 

“At the time, yes. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, believe me.”

 

“I’m not _ashamed_.”

 

“Sorry, sorry, bad choice of words.”

 

She plucks at the sleeve of her Metallica t-shirt. “It’s just... Like I said in that letter, I hate that you were _right_ , that I was such a fucking cliché. That I was a victim.”

 

“Rey--“

 

“Shush. I was a mess. And not just because of what happened with--with Han. It has a lot to do with my biological father, too. And my mother, our relationship. And her relationships with men. The way they treated her. And the way they treated me.”

 

He swallows thickly, his chest aching. He just wants to put his fist through the head of every man who’s ever hurt her. Including himself.

 

“When I left you, I wasn’t okay. I mean, I left _because_ I wasn’t okay. I’m sorry I did it that way, but I had to get away from you,” she says softly. He frowns, not quite sure what she means, but doesn’t interrupt. “Before I tore you apart. I would’ve. I would’ve kept finding shitty reasons to act out and fuck random strangers in front of you to torture you. I couldn’t do that to you. I knew I had to sort myself out.”

 

He nods slowly and takes a chance, touching her hand on the table, taking it in his. She lets him.

 

“The therapist has been helping me find a new way to relate to people. To men.”

 

“And is it helping?”

 

“Yeah, I feel less...out of control. Like I’m becoming more myself, if that makes sense. But I can’t, uh, I can’t say it took effect right away.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“The whole sorting myself out thing. It wasn’t like a switch suddenly flipped. I can’t say I very suddenly became the chaste spinster you see now.” He sees her swallow – she’s nervous. Nervous of what he’ll think of this. “I...I sorta went on a massive bender for a short time. If you know what I mean.”

 

He does. He gets the picture. Very clearly. He nods. Then squeezes her hand. “I didn’t know spinsters like Metallica,” he teases gently.

 

She smiles faintly and squeezes his hand back. “Spinsters like to rage.”

 

He laughs. Which makes her laugh. Which makes him glad. She smiles at him and seems lighter than she’s been all evening. A weight off her shoulders, maybe.

 

But he needs to make his own confessions, too.

 

“I haven’t exactly been a saint either, Rey,” he says. “I drink way too much, for starters. And there’s this girl in Paris, Lucie--“

 

“You have a girlfriend,” she says faintly and tries to pull her hand away.

 

He doesn’t let her go, though, keeping hold of her. “No. That’s not what I was gonna say, sissy. I slept with her. Twice.”

 

“You absolute sex addict.”

 

“Well I basically used her and I feel like shit about it. I felt like shit about it at the time, too.”

 

“Why did you do it, then?” she asks, not harshly.

 

“Bad choices. Really, I wanted to know if I could, y’know, move on.”

 

“And could you?” she asks quietly.

 

“Not at all. I’m still in love with you,” he says plainly, looking straight at her.

 

She blinks. She stares right back at him, her eyes big. “I’m still in love with you, too.”

 

His whole body tingles and sings. He almost asks her to marry him. Instead he asks, “Can I see you again tomorrow?”

 

“It _is_ tomorrow. It’s five in the morning.”

 

“Later today, then.”

 

“You’re going to Paris.”

 

“No, I’m not going anywhere.”

 

“I have to work.”

 

“Where do you work?”

 

“A cinema near King’s Cross. I manage the café-bar.”

 

“I’ll come watch you work. I’ll just sit there drinking lattes all day, you won’t even know I’m there.”

 

“No. You’re such a stalker.”

 

“You have no idea, sissy.”

 

“How about you buy me breakfast now and then pick me up at work tonight. We’ll go to dinner. You love dinner.”

 

“Tonight sounds like a _really_ long time from now.”

 

“I want to do this properly, Ben. We’ll go on a date like normal people. We’ll get to know each other again. See if this can work in the real world.”

 

He sees his whole future in her bright eyes. “I’d like that very much.”

 

 

 

 

 

TBC


	9. Exhibitionists

 

He picks her up at her workplace at the appointed time, on the dot. They go up to Camden Market and get some tasty street food for dinner. And beer. And then get ice cream. And then stroll by the canal holding hands. They don’t stay out until five in the morning, they part ways at eleven-thirty so she can get the last Tube. He offers to take her home in a taxi, but she insists they do it this way.

 

Outside the station she looks up at him and asks, “Meet me tomorrow?” It’s not even a question for him. They make plans and she kisses the corner of his mouth quickly and slips away, disappearing past the turnstiles. He licks at the corner of his mouth, tasting her lip gloss, and gets lost walking all the way back to his hotel because his mind is only on her.

 

***

 

They start dating in earnest.

 

Dinners. Lunches. Lunches that stretch into dinners. Pubs. Museums. Cafes. Parks. A play, three plays. Bookshops. Sightseeing. Afternoon tea. Public places where they have to be on their best behavior.

 

At the end of their dates, she presses up against him and kisses the corner of his mouth but does no more. He doesn’t push for more, he lets her lead the way. She said she’s trying to relate in a new way. He thinks she might be scared, though, too.

 

***

 

She’s different now, just a bit. Reserved. Like she’s holding back, keeping herself in check.

 

He wonders if he seems different. He doesn’t feel that different. He still worships her – more intensely than before, really. He’s still ravenous for her. But he’s keeping himself in check, too, nothing but patient. And he always will be.

 

He makes himself concentrate on his book when she’s not with him. His character moves past all his bad choices and he falls in love with a fearless, fierce woman with a shaved head who runs a battered women’s shelter and he starts cobbling together some kind of redemption.

 

One difference in himself that he does note – he doesn’t get drunk every night. Or any night, to be honest. He and Rey drink plenty, but he isn’t swimming in it like he has been over the past year.

 

***

 

She won’t let him escort her home or pick her up at home, at her mom’s house in Islington. “She wouldn’t like it, us seeing each other,” she explains. Him being Han Solo’s son and all. He gets it.

 

“So where does she think you are, when we’re out late?”

 

Rey shrugs. “She doesn’t much care. So long as I stay out of her way, she’s not bothered about most of what I get up to.” That makes him really sad. She fiddles with her gin and tonic, mashing the wedge of lime with her straw, and goes on, “I saw my shrink the other day. We were talking about her, about you, about your father. I was remembering what happened when my mother found out about me and Han. She said some _awful_ things to him. At the time, I didn’t really hear her, what she was _really_ saying, it was all too fraught. But now... Well I realized something. My mother didn’t... I don’t think she kicked him out because he was...y’know. Abusing me. I think she broke up with him because--because she was _jealous_. Of her own teenage daughter.”

 

“Fuck, Rey, that’s...” He reaches across the table and takes her hand. There’s a hot, aching stone in his throat now. “I’m sorry, baby.”

 

She nods slowly, not looking at him. She picks up his hand in both of hers and presses her soft lips to his knuckles, holding him there. “I know you are, love,” she says, her mouth moving against his skin.

 

After that he starts seriously perusing real estate listings in London and pricing moving companies in Paris.

 

***

 

The only time he gets drunk is when they both do in spectacular fashion. He takes her to the nicest restaurant in town, which he saw described on Trip Advisor as “looking like the inside of Marie Antoinette’s bedroom on acid”. It does. He drops £400 on dinner and they drink another £500 in champagne because they can because he’s made of money now.

 

By the time the champagne and food are gone, they’re wasted and everything is hilarious and rap songs. _Bubbles_.

 

“I’m not fucking you tonight. Just because you spent most of a month’s rent on me,” she says crisply, loudly, drunkenly, in the middle of the restaurant, drawing eyes.

 

He already knows that and shrugs, replying, “You know you can take whatever you want. Every penny I have.”

 

She sticks out her hand, makes a gun with her finger, points it at him. “Stand and fucking deliver.”

 

And when he goes to the bathroom to take a piss, he runs right back to the table, tripping over the champagne bucket, sending it flying, and drags Rey along with him because there are fucking _space pods_ in the bathroom – mad, egg-shaped pods for doing one’s business in. And colored lights in the ceiling like they’ve stepped inside a 2001 Space Odyssey-themed disco.

 

They get stuck in a pod together, because they’re drunk. The lights in the pod keep changing color. “Fuck it, I’m getting one of these,” he declares admiringly. And he hasn’t peed yet but still needs to, so he pees while she watches. Then she pulls down her cotton panties and pulls up her summery dress and pees while he watches and she watches him watch.

 

They’re rescued by the bathroom attendant before they get a chance to take their clothes off and make a drunken mistake. Then they’re politely asked to leave the restaurant immediately.

 

***

 

He arrives early to pick her up at work. He’s managed to restrain himself from going there every day and just watching her work, as he threatened to do. But half an hour early won’t kill anyone.

 

Inside, the movie theater – cinema, as she said – is not what he was expecting. He pictured the AMC multiplex he frequented in Brooklyn, with the soda-and-gum-stained carpeting, the bored teenagers in ill-fitting polo shirts dispensing huge sodas, and the smell of rancid fake butter topping. This...is none of those things. The lounge, with the café-bar, is less grubby movie theater lobby and more high-end boutique hotel lobby. There’s no popcorn machine, hotdogs cooking on rollers, or nacho cheese pumps. There’s an espresso machine and a full bar and “sharing plates”.

 

The young man behind the counter selling tickets and making lattes looks like he should be in an indie rock band or on a fashion week catwalk. He asks Ben if he wants to try their signature cocktail, the Russian Revolution, which is actually just a white Russian made with oat milk. Ben isn’t sure what oat milk is.

 

“Um, I’m actually looking for Rey,” he says, not liking how good-looking and “hip” this younger man is, and adds without even thinking, “I’m her brother.”

 

“Oh, I didn’t know she had a brother,” Indie Band says.

 

“Twin brother,” Rey says, appearing at the end of the counter with a clipboard. She puts it on the bar and comes around to stand in front of Ben, close. “And you’re early,” she scolds, poking his chest hard.

 

“I know, sissy,” he murmurs, touching her neck lightly, briefly.

 

“Don’t make me spank you.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

 

She’s staring up at him, biting her lip, her hazel eyes glittering and naughty. And he’s staring down at her, picturing her pull on his hair whilst smacking his bare ass. He licks his lips and she leans closer.

 

“You don’t look that much alike. Fraternal twins?” Indie Band says loudly, interrupting. He’s giving them a weird look Ben’s seen before, long ago.

 

“Identical twins,” Ben corrects.

 

“Why do you have different accents?”

 

“Ben’s French,” Rey answers, clearing that right up.

 

She steps away from him, back to the bar, and picks up her clipboard, gets back to business. “I’m putting in the order tomorrow, so what else do we need? Do we have more of that craft gin in the back?”

 

He sits on a crushed velvet sofa for the next twenty-five minutes and does have a Russian Revolution after all (on the house). It’s good, not oaty at all. He watches Rey work. Stares at Rey while she works, to be accurate.

 

When they can finally escape Indie Band’s suspicious, dubious side-eye, they go down the way to Granary Square where there’s a street food fair (oy vey, this city, it just _loves_ the street food, doesn’t it). There are a lot of people about, having dinner – unusually dressed students from the adjacent art college, businesspeople, hipsters, construction workers. The whole square smells like wood smoke and grilling meat and sunshine.

 

He and Rey eat Korean barbecue tacos and sit watching the huge water fountain – a grid of hundreds of small openings in the pavement sprouting water in a choreographed display. It’s a hot night, even with the sun making its way down, and babies in diapers and toddlers in bathing suits play in the cool water, chasing each other and the dancing geysers.

 

Her smile is easy and frequent tonight, her gaze on him still cheeky – something freer in her demeanor, more relaxed. He can’t help but comment, smiling, “You seem really happy tonight. Are you really happy tonight?”

 

She wipes at his chin – a stray smudge of barbecue sauce – and licks her thumb clean. “I am,” she answers. And then she stands up and slots herself between his knees, her fingers combing his hair back from his face.

 

His hands come up to rest on her slim hips, squeezing gently. “Good. I am, too.”

 

She plays with his big ears a moment. “I’m glad you’re here, Ben,” she murmurs and leans down, her mouth landing squarely on his, warm and soft, setting him alight. He makes a little involuntary sound in the back of his throat, something grateful and needy, and his arms wrap around her legs, her ass, clinging tight. She says, “I missed you,” her lips moving on his.

 

“I missed you, too,” he says and kisses her again, tasting her lips with his tongue, tasting kimchi and barbecue. “So much.”

 

She presses her face against his cheek for a long moment and then leans away, pulling away. He’s already bereft but releases his tight hold, rests his hands on the backs of her knees.

 

“Do you like my shirt?” she asks, tugging on its hem. It’s a soft black t-shirt, v-necked, well-worn, little holes at some of the seams. It’s big on her, hanging down over her skinny black jeans.

 

“I do.” He _literally_ doesn’t care what she wears – he’ll like it, no matter what. She could wear stained coveralls like a garbage man every day for the rest of her life and he’d like it.

 

“Do you recognize it?”

 

He frowns, confused, not sure why he should. Then he realizes – it’s one of his, he had it in Provence last summer. He hadn’t even noticed it was missing. “You took it?”

 

“When I left. So I could hold onto your smell. For a little while, at least.” That makes him want to fucking cry. But she’s grinning and asks, “You want it back?”

 

But she doesn’t wait for a reply, pulling the shirt over her head and dropping it in his lap. She’s wearing a thin purple bra underneath and he stares, speechless, dumbfounded, as she kicks off her flats and undoes her jeans, peeling them down her legs, revealing her plain white undies.

 

She dashes away from him, into the water fountain, shrieking when one of the jets suddenly erupts under her foot and sprays her. He laughs out loud and then can’t stop grinning, watching her run around with a couple toddlers, a fat baby in a soggy, sagging diaper crawling along behind her. Rey’s impossibly lovely – happy and glowing in the warm, late-day sun.

 

But when the kids are called away by their mother, the baby scooped up, and Rey’s out there alone for a moment, Ben pulls off his high-tops and socks, strips down to his tighty-whiteys (well, they’re _black_ , not white), and races into the water. She’s grinning, seeing him barrel towards her half-naked, and darts away. He chases her and catches her from behind, flinging his arms around her belly and picking her up and spinning her around in the water, making her shriek again.

 

They play in the water like little kids do.

 

They kiss like horny teenagers do, wet and hot and sloppy, for all to see.

 

They get soaked to the skin and it’s all entirely wonderfully perfect.

 

“Soon, Ben, okay?” she breathes into his ear as the water dances around them and glitters like gold. He presses his face into the crook of her neck, kissing her cool skin, hugging her tight, knowing what she means, what she’s telling him. Her fingers dig into his wet hair. “Soon.”

 

***

 

He’s not sure when “soon” will be, but he spends the next morning and afternoon preparing.

 

He visits a clinic to make sure he’s clean, even though he did remember to wrap it up both times he was with Lucie from Paris.

 

He procures more condoms.

 

He goes to a day spa and gets everything scrubbed and tidied up and moisturized.

 

He goes to Selfridges and buys fancy underwear. They’re not mesh or assless or anything crazy, but they’re designer and he gets them because they’re bright pink and the smallest cut in the men’s department. They’re _small_. But he wants to look good for Rey. He buys ten pairs and washes them in the little laundry room at his hotel.

 

He wears a pair on their date that night. “Soon” doesn’t happen but that’s okay because they make out on the Tube and that’s very good.

 

***

 

She has the next day off, a Wednesday, so they take the bus up to Hampstead Heath and buy a lot of tasty treats at a bakery and walk up to the top of the heath. She’s brought a blanket so they take their shoes off and sit on the blanket in the hot sun. There’s a cool, steady breeze that makes it nice and they look out at the view of central London in the distance. They’re not the only ones, several other couples and some dogwalkers scattered about, sitting in the grass, facing the view and the sunshine.

 

They eat quiche and sausage rolls and smoked salmon sandwiches and fruit salad and drink fizzy lemonade because the bakery didn’t have any liquor.

 

“God, I miss the food in France,” she says, brushing crumbs off her short white shorts. “Ugh, if I ever see another sausage roll, I swear...”

 

“I think they’re good,” he says, chewing on his last bite of one right now in fact. “But, yeah, the food over there is way better.”

 

“Remember our picnic by that farm? In the Dentelles?”

 

“Of course. You braided my hair.” He swallows and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “That’s when I fell in love with you, I think. That day.”

 

She kneels there, very still, looking at him for a long moment. And then she’s on him, straddling his lap, her mouth on his, her tongue slipping between his lips. He groans and wraps his arms around her. She digs her fingers into his hair and presses herself tight up against him and they kiss for a while like that, eager, hungry. His hands wander over her back and then lower and he squeezes her ass and she mewls into his mouth, bites his lip.

 

They fall back onto the blanket together and lie there, kissing, and she feels so perfect in his arms. This is still something exciting and new, doing this with her after so long apart. But at the same time, even more, it feels like it’s _always_ been this way between them. Like they were never strangers and never apart. Like they were born this way.

 

She slips her small hand under his t-shirt, pushing it up to rub and lightly scratch at his thick, wide chest. She keeps pushing, trying to get his shirt off. He obliges, puts his arms over his head, lets her push the shirt off him.

 

She starts kissing his neck, her tongue laving over the sweaty skin there. She kisses and nibbles his chest and her hand strokes his belly, making it flutter, and he groans, his hips jerking up, his hard cock pressing into her through their clothes. She pulls her mouth away and sits up abruptly.

 

“Sorry...I’m sorry...” he gasps out, feeling guilty. Too much too soon too fast. Shit.

 

She’s looking down at him, her face hard to read, the sun in his eyes. “You should put some sunblock on. You’ll burn.”

 

“Yeah.” He’s pale again, except for his farmer’s tan from wearing t-shirts all the time this summer.

 

She crawls off him and he knows the moment’s over. He sighs and tries to will his body to calm down.

 

She reaches into her handbag and roots around. She pulls out a bottle of sunscreen. He holds out his hand for it but she doesn’t give it to him. And he thinks he misjudged things a wee bit when she peels her loose t-shirt off and climbs back on top of him, straddling his hips, wriggling on top of his cock. His mouth goes dry, his blood fizzes. Yeah, okay, moment’s back on.

 

She pops open the bottle of sunscreen and holds it down where her thighs are spread over him and she squirts a long, indecent, lewd line of white cream over his belly and chest. She grins, mischievous and filthy.

 

His dirty girl, he loves her so much.

 

She pushes her hands into the mess she’s made, sliding her palms up his belly, up his chest, up to his collarbone, slow, leaning over him, and then pulls back, spreading the cream around over his skin, coating him, rubbing it in, taking her time, clearly enjoying it. He revels in how good her hands feel, how much she likes his body, and his hips jerk again, a little thrust against her ass, seeking more.

 

“ _Rey_ ,” he murmurs, desperate, squeezing her thighs.

 

She sits down again on his hips and drags her crotch back over his straining dick, driving him crazy. He reaches for her, but she keeps going, scooting down further so she’s straddling his knees. She fingers the button of his jeans and looks up at him, checking in with him. He says her name again, begging, and she flicks the button open and unzips him, her fingers brushing his cock through his tight underwear, making him groan, making him throb.

 

He pushes his hips up so she can work his pants off, and when she gets them down to his thighs, she stops, staring down at his underwear. His small, bright pink, low rise briefs, hardly containing his swollen dick right now. They match her bra, the same color pink he realizes dimly, through the fog of need.

 

“What the fuck are you wearing?” she murmurs, her voice low and rough, her slick hands absently kneading high on his thick thighs, close to the target but not quite, driving him mad. He’s glad now he had that area tidied up a bit at the spa the other day.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he answers coyly, propping himself up on his elbows.

 

“Mm _hmmm_ ,” she hums and shoves his jeans all the way down. He kicks them off his feet and she kneels, hovering above his shins, and looks him over, biting her lip. “You’re so fucking hot, Ben, _fuck_.”

 

His body hums and tightens all over. “Only when I’m with you,” he says. “The rest of the time I’m Quasimodo.” He reaches out a hand to her. “Come here, sweetheart.”

 

She hesitates. Then undoes the fly of her shorts, pulls the zipper down. She crawls up his body and lies on top of him, kissing him, and he reaches, pushes her shorts down for her. Her legs kick and her hips wriggle atop his as she works them off and he can’t bear it and he grabs her lovely round ass in both hands, holding her still.

 

“I’m gonna come if you keep doing that, mademoiselle,” he warns, murmuring against her lips.

 

“So do it,” she answers, shifting her hips in his grasp, rolling them against his cock.

 

He sucks on her lips, on her tongue. “I wanna come inside you instead.”

 

She reaches down between them, pushes at his underwear, trying to get them down. “So do it,” she says breathlessly, tugging down eagerly. “I want you to.”

 

They’re in the middle of a public park, other people not _that_ far away, and nowhere near a tree or a shrub to hide behind.

 

Her hot, greasy little hand slips under his waistband and wraps around his cock, squeezing gently, pulling him out of his scanty underwear. She strokes him once, slow, firm. He sees stars, lost, helpless.

 

Fuck the other people.

 

He rolls them over on the blanket, lying half on top of her, pushing her wispy lace bra up, freeing her lovely, pink-tipped breasts. “I have protection,” he whispers, cupping her breast, rubbing his thumb over her hard nipple.

 

She shakes her head, kissing and licking his neck desperately. “I’ve been to the clinic – it’s safe – _please_ baby-- ”

 

“I went to the clinic, too.”

 

She hums happily against his skin and he settles himself between her legs, her thighs spread wide around him. He reaches down, pushes the crotch of her thin underwear aside and gently runs his fingers through her hot, wet folds before sliding them into her body. She’s so _tight_ and she mewls and arches and he strokes her carefully, stretching her slowly, marveling at how she feels inside, marveling that he gets to touch her like this again.

 

She opens her eyes, looks up at him, her eyes dark and wide and dazed. She touches his cheek tenderly. “You’re everything to me, you know that, don’t you?”

 

He presses his forehead to hers and pulls his fingers away, taking hold of his cock. “You’re everything to me, too,” he repeats, whispering, sliding deep inside her, filling her and coming home.

 

He groans, overwhelmed, overcome. She keens, high and breathy, and digs her fingers into his shoulders. He feels her heart thudding against his, through their skin and muscle and bone. He feels conjoined to her, one body, inside her everywhere, and _her_ inside _him_ everywhere. “You _are_ me,“ he gasps, starting to move.

 

She hooks her heels around his waist and holds on tight as he fucks her deep. “We’re the same--” she breathes, her voice catching as he pushes in, his hips shoving up hard against hers. “--the same person,” she breathes.

 

They are. They are.

 

 

 

TBC.


	10. The Last Days of London

It’s the best sex of his life. No question. Here with Rey on the top of the heath in the sunshine for the whole world to see how beautiful they are together, it’s _impossibly_ good.

 

After, he wants to stay here all day just like this – messy and slippery and sweaty, wrapped around each other, kissing languidly, her hand stroking his back, getting sleepy, basking in the sun and the sex and each other. But soon enough she says they should leave the park. He thinks she’s worried about the cops rolling up on them or whatever. She isn’t – she tells him she wants to get back to his hotel as fast as possible so she can suck his cock and then be on top so she can fuck him into the floor.

 

He’s not super sure how they actually get from Hampstead Heath back to his hotel nearer the river. Most likely in a taxi. He’s entirely distracted. Maybe they fly.

 

***

 

They get to his suite and put out the “do not disturb” sign and have sex all day. Day becomes night and they’re still fucking, making up for a year of missed time in a frenzy of cock, cunt, and come. They can’t stop. As soon as they’ve both come, he’ll reach for her or she’ll reach for him and they start all over again.

 

She sucks his cock, as she said she would, kneeling between his legs on the bed, and he loses his fucking mind. She swallows him down and he licks a dribble of come off her chin and lips. She sucks his cock again later, on her knees on the plush carpeting in front of the full-length mirror so he can see everything, taking him all they way down her throat. He blacks out briefly.

 

He gives as good as he gets. He spreads her out on the end of the bed and kneels on the floor and buries his face between her legs, where he feasts and drinks and makes her writhe and scream. He’s been dreaming of doing this since the day he met her and he can’t get enough. She comes once like that, and then he nibbles the insides of her thighs and runs his hands over her body until she’s squirming again, ready, and so he does it all over again and gets her to spurt into his mouth. He has her sit on his face later and she almost suffocates him as she’s coming and that makes him come so hard he somehow gets jizz on the flatscreen TV on the wall.

 

They finally pass out on the designer sofa at four-something in the morning, her sprawled on top of him, dead weight – they can’t move enough to get to the bed in the other room.

 

***

 

When he wakes, it’s bright in the room and he’s alone on the couch. He sits up, a tickle of panic wriggling in his belly. Knocking on the door – that’s what woke him.

 

He pushes his hair out of his face and gets off the couch, joints popping, achy and sore in all sorts of places, and glances around, looking for Rey. He can’t see all of the bedroom from here, just some through the doorway, but she doesn’t seem to be in there either.

 

A familiar, dark dread fills him instantly.

 

_She’s gone_.

 

“Rey? _Rey_?”

 

Knocking on the door again, more insistent, startles him, makes him jump.

 

“Ben, are you up? Can you get that?” he hears her call from the bathroom.

 

Relief surges through him. The bathroom. He’s such an _idiot_. “Yeah,” he calls back and goes to the door on wobbly knees, his heart still hammering. He peers out the peephole and pulls open the door.

 

“You ordered room--“ a man in a hotel uniform begins, his words cutting off and his eyes quickly darting away. “--room service?”

 

Ben realizes he’s completely naked. He doesn’t care. He holds the door open wide, lets the man push his little cart in. It’s heaving with food. She must’ve ordered everything on the breakfast menu.

 

“Can I set it out for you, sir?” the waiter asks, still judiciously averting his gaze.

 

“Uh, sure. The patio is good, thanks.”

 

The waiter wheels his little cart outside, onto the enclosed patio, but Ben makes a detour to the bathroom, knocking lightly on the door. “You all right in there, sissy?” he asks through the door.

 

“I’ll be out in a sec. I’m just washing your spunk out of my hair,” she answers colorfully.

 

He’s not sure what to say to that, really. “Okey doke.”

 

He grabs some cash from his wallet and goes out to the patio where the waiter is finishing arranging everything. He tips the guy generously on his way out – hazard pay.

 

Ben sniffs the coffee – it smells good. He’s suddenly _starving_. He sneaks a piece of what they call bacon in this country (he’d call it ham). They never did have any dinner last night, just each other.

 

There are purple flowers he doesn’t know the name of growing in the leafy green screen that encloses the patio. He plucks out a few of the flowers and arranges them in a spare drinking glass, makes them pretty, puts it in front of Rey’s waiting plate.

 

“Nice outfit,” Rey says behind him. He turns to find her at the door wrapped in a big, thick, white hotel robe, her hair wet and combed back. “You want a robe, big brother?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Are you taking a page out of my book now? Trying to keep my attention with your hot-as-fuck body?”

 

She’s teasing him, he knows, and says it without even the tiniest trace of malice or anger, but _wow_ – she will never forget the things he wrote about her, will she? That’s all right, he deserves it. “Is it working?”

 

“Yep. Guess who else you’ve got the attention of?”

 

“The room service waiter. I tipped him a lot because he saw my junk.”

 

“And...” She looks at something behind him, her eyes and her finger going up.

 

He looks. Yeah, the office building – he knows. The leafy green screen around the patio is, in fact, open to the sky. There’s an office building adjacent to the hotel, rising above his top-floor suite. He can see people at their desks through their floor-to-ceiling windows and if any of them were to look out and down, they’d be able to see him. In his birthday suit. He doesn’t care.

 

And indeed there are three women standing at a window on what must be the eighteenth or nineteenth floor, looking down at him, clearly giggling amongst themselves, their heads bent together like schoolgirls. And another woman at a desk a few floors above that, her chair turned all the way toward the window. She’s fanning herself. The A/C must be off.

 

He gives the sweaty lady a wave and turns back to Rey, finds her grinning devilishly. He grins back and asks, “Do you like them looking at me like that?”

 

She bites her lip. “I do.”

 

“Good.”

 

They sit down to breakfast. He hopes the ladies enjoy watching them stuff their faces like two wild beasts.

 

He watches Rey inhale a quiche Lorraine. She touches a finger gently to the delicate petals of the purple flowers and smiles at him warmly.

 

He thinks about what she said – how he’s taking a page out of her book. It’s more than that, though. It’s not just him imitating her but _becoming_ her. He’s becoming her and she’s becoming him and they’re meeting in the middle as the same, as total equals. It occurs to him the whole fucking world would be better off like this – men becoming more like women and women becoming more like men until they’re all the same.

 

He shovels eggs into his mouth and thinks about the past couple of days – at the water feature, at the park – how different it is now, her exhibitionism. Not just because he’s eagerly joining in but because now she isn’t “acting out” or compulsively seeking attention, like she alluded to. She’s embracing that part of herself, the exhibitionist side, because she _wants_ to, because she likes it, because it’s who she is. That’s how it seems to him, anyway. She doesn’t have to suppress it under the auspice of “finding a new way to relate to men” because she isn’t trying to hold onto some man – she’s got _him_ , and she’s got his attention, all of it, all of him, always. And she knows it. He _hopes_ she knows it.

 

“These muffins are scrummy,” she says, her mouth full.

 

“You know I’m not going anywhere, right?” he replies.

 

She looks at him, chewing, crumbs on her lips. “Oh no?” she says casually.

 

“No.”

 

She swallows. “Neither am I. Not ever.”

 

Goosebumps jump up all over his skin and he shivers a little, her words quietly monumental. They’ve _really_ got to go flat-hunting.

 

“Except to work later,” she adds, her pretty hazel eyes shining with amusement and promise. “By which I mean tomorrow. I’m calling in sick today. I’m not done with you yet, mate.”

 

***

 

They finish breakfast and have a digestion break and then, back in bed, he has lunch between her legs, eating out her pussy like she’s a five-course meal.

 

She’s still breathing hard, recovering, when he crawls up her body, licking his slick lips, wanting to ask her something. He’s nervous about it. “Rey?”

 

“Fuck, you’re good at that. Jesus...”

 

“Can I ask you something?”

 

“Mmhmm.”

 

He hesitates. He’s feeling strangely shy about this for some reason.

 

Fuck it, he’s just gotta go for it.

 

“Will you--“ He pauses. Licks his lips again. Maybe this is dumb. “You said something once about spanking me.” Okay, not quite as direct as he intended.

 

“Mmhmm?”

 

“Do you want to do that?”

 

She opens her eyes, looks at him. “Do you want me to?”

 

“Yes. If you want to.”

 

Her face lights up, her mouth falling open a little, like she can’t believe her luck. “ _Hell yes_.”

 

He’s pleased, relieved. He kisses her pink nipple in thanks. “And--and can you pull my hair while you do it?”

 

She practically launches off the bed and pulls him with her. She manhandles him around, makes him face the wall, bent over a bit, his hands braced flat against the wall. She slides up between his arms and kisses him once, gently, sweetly.

 

“Don’t move,” she demands.

 

And then she’s ducking away, disappearing. He sees her dart into the bathroom, hears the water run briefly, and then she’s coming back with a damp washcloth, setting it aside.

 

“What’s that for?” he asks.

 

“Later.”

 

His tummy flutters. God knows what that means.

 

She stands beside him and smooths a hand slowly down his back, down further to his ass. She squeezes there firmly, keeps her hand there.

 

“I love your hard little bum, Ben,” she murmurs, squeezing again. Her other hand reaches up and digs into his hair. He licks his lips. She asks if he’s ready. He very much is.

 

Her hand in his hair tightens and she yanks on it, jerking his head back, just as her other hand comes down on his bare ass, the sound sharp and fleshy and satisfying. He grunts, his blood surging, his cock stirring.

 

“Do you like that?” she asks, the hand in his hair relaxing.

 

“ _Yes_ ,” he hisses.

 

So she does it again, pulling his hair, smacking his ass, getting him harder.

 

“Yeah, you like that,” she purrs.

 

“ _Harder_ ,” he pleads.

 

She bites his shoulder lightly and obliges him, pulling harder, smacking harder, making his flesh sting, making him grunt and groan. She doesn’t let up this time, doesn’t pause, just keeps at him – again and again and again, the angry pull on his scalp and the sharp crack and hot sting of skin on skin _so fucking good_ he doesn’t have words for it, just incoherent grunting.

 

“I’m--I’m close,” he chokes out soon.

 

She keeps her fist in his hair but stops hitting him, her small hand resting on his burning flesh and he pushes back against her hand, seeking more. But then her finger slides down between his cheeks and presses gently against his asshole, making him jerk and throb.

 

“Can I?” she asks, her voice low and quiet.

 

Holy fuck. His head swims. He’s never done any of this before but he’ll fucking die if she doesn’t shove her fingers in him. His hips shove back again and he moans luridly, feeling her finger so close to slipping inside. “ _Please_...”

 

But instead she takes her finger and her hand away and he looks over his shoulder, wondering what she’s doing, desperate for her to fuck him. But then he sees – how she’s putting her fingers between her thighs, dipping them inside her cunt. He blinks, amazed, and watches as she pulls them out, how they’re slick now with her wet. He moans again and spreads his legs a little wider.

 

When one slippery finger eases inside him, he groans long and shuddery and presses his forehead against the wall, overwhelmed. His knees shake.

 

“Yes?” she murmurs.

 

“ _Fuck yes_...”

 

Her finger moves inside him, working his asshole open enough for a second slick finger to slide in, join the first. And then she’s fucking him, her fingers pumping slowly in and out of him and he can’t shut up, cursing and making the most indecent and unintelligible noises.

 

“Faster please fuck _faster_ Rey...” he babbles.

 

She obliges. She fucks him faster, harder, going as deep as she can. She has small hands, small fingers. He’s never done this, no, but he can’t help but wonder what it’d be like if she had something longer, to go deeper. Like a dildo. Like a strap-on.

 

He’s fucking picturing it, her naked and wearing a big hard dick, leather straps tight on her tanned skin, the dildo rubbing against her clit. Him four on the floor and her hands gripping his hips, holding him still as she fucks him vigorously.

 

He groans, dizzy with need, and shoves his hips back against her hand and his prostate rubs against her fingers and moans low and deep, guttural. “ _Fuck..._ ” he hisses. “Right there,” he begs.

 

“Like this?” she murmurs, pumping her fingers and crooking them a little so she’s rubbing his prostate each time. He groans loudly, his blunt nails scratching into the wallpaper, agonized. “You like that?”

 

He can’t even speak, just grunt helplessly. “ _Uh uh uh uh uh_...” He squeezes his eyes shut and feels ready to fly apart. “I need to come-- _Please..._ ”

 

“What do you need, baby?” she murmurs beside him, pumping into him. “Your dick?”

 

“Hair,” he grunts, desperate.

 

She’d let go at some point but now she grabs his long hair in a tight fist and pulls _hard_ , jerking his head painfully, twisting her fingers in his ass, and that’s it, he’s coming loud and long and hot and all over the wall, his eyes watering, filthy words falling from his lips.

 

When she lets go of him, when her fingers slide out, his knees wobble and he leans heavily on the wall, sweaty and breathing hard, shaking all over. “Fuck...” he breathes, seeing stars.

 

She sits down on the thick carpeting, her back against the wall, and tugs him down. He slides down, plopping onto his over-worked ass, and slumps over, boneless, laying his head on her lap, his face pressed against her thigh. He can smell her wet cunt, earthy and musky.

 

He feels something wet trail over his shoulder slightly, tickling – the edge of the washcloth. He turns his head a little to see – she’s cleaning her fingers.

 

“That’s what that was for?” he mumbles, hardly able to form intelligible words or muster amazement. He rests his head on her thigh again, melting into her. “You knew I’d wanna?”

 

“No. Didn’t know. _Hoped_.” He chuckles a little, his eyes slipping shut. He feels soft and safe. “I’m gonna clean you up a little, m’kay?”

 

He hums. The wet cloth touches his throbbing skin and he feels her wipe his ass gently, quickly. He should be embarrassed, he supposes. A grown man getting his ass wiped. But he finds himself not caring one bit. He’d do the same for her if she needed it. She can do whatever she wants to him.

 

The cloth goes away and he hears a soft plop as she tosses it away. Her cool hands touch his sweaty skin. “You were so good for me, Ben, weren’t you?” she coos softly, her hand smoothing over his sweaty shoulder and back, her other hand combing his hair gently. “You were so good for sissy, weren’t you, sweetheart? Hmm? My sweet boy...”

 

“I love you,” he murmurs into her skin, feeling sleepy.

 

“I love you, too,” she answers, petting him tenderly. “So much.”

 

***

 

“Okay, stop there. Hold those in your left hand.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Now do what you just did on the other side.”

 

“Uh...”

 

“Take a section, pull it back.”

 

“Oh, right, right, gotcha.”

 

“Now incorporate it into... Yep, like that.”

 

“Okay...”

 

“Now fold that over the middle... Yep.”

 

“This is _hard_ , sissy.”

 

“Oy vey, what’s _hard_ is trying to talk you through French braiding while looking at it backwards and over my shoulder.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“You’re doing good, keep going.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“Ben, love? Can I ask you something?”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Where’s your flat in Paris?”

 

“Montmartre. But, uh, I’ve been thinking--”

 

“ _Where_ in Montmartre, I mean.”

 

“Rue Lambert. Five minute walk from the Sacr **é** -Coeur. Why?”

 

“What’s it like? Big?”

 

“Uh, sorta. Not anything _huge_ , but not some closet like in Manhattan either.”

 

“Studio?”

 

“No, one bedroom. Bathroom, kitchen, living room. Separate dining room actually. Balcony. Gas fireplace. Skylights. It’s on the top floor. It’s nice.”

 

“It sounds nice. No, no, that goes over the middle strand remember.”

 

“Oh, right, sorry.”

 

“Yeah, like that, good. Did it come furnished?”

 

“Uh, no, I got new furniture since I’d sold all my Brooklyn stuff. I never really finished the job, though.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Like, there’s no table in the dining room, no chairs. I just eat in the living room in my armchair. And I haven’t bought a couch or a rug yet.”

 

“No couch?”

 

“I never felt like looking for one, I guess. But that doesn’t matter--”

 

“It does matter, though! What’re we supposed to sit on together?”

 

“...Huh?”

 

“Y’know, to watch TV and stuff. Here, tie off the ends with this. That looks good, actually. See? Not that hard. Gotta have a couch. Reading, canoodling, napping. _Shagging_. Especially that. We’ll need a good shagging couch. Something with wide, sturdy armrests.”

 

“You’d... That’s what you want?”

 

“Of course. What’re your thoughts on leather? Easy clean up but it’s not very comfortable in hot weather. I dunno. It might be okay. We’ll have to see what’s out there, I guess.”

 

“We...we can do that.”

 

“Something comfy, that’s what matters.”

 

“What color?”

 

“Well, what color are the walls?”

 

“White. We could paint, though.”

 

“Mm, maybe. We’ll see. Do you like prints?”

 

“Not really.”

 

“Maybe orange? I’ve always wanted an orange sofa for some reason. Not neon, I mean like pumpkin orange.”

 

“I like orange.”

 

“Is there room for something L-shaped? Y’know – what do you call it – a sectional.”

 

“Yeah, for sure. There’s a bank of windows in the corner, that’s where I have my chair right now because it’s good reading light. But we can move that and put the sofa there instead. And a coffee table, I forgot about that. We’ll need one of those.”

 

“Okay, well, we’ll go to that big IKEA north of the city when we get home.”

 

“Man... I _hate_ IKEA.”

 

“ _What_? How can you hate IKEA? That’s, like, not possible.”

 

“I can never put that shit together! Those little drawings make no sense.”

 

“Oy vey, lucky for you I _can_. Allen wrenches – _so complicated_.”

 

“All right, fine, smarty-pants. We’ll go to IKEA.”

 

“Good.”

 

“But only if we can get meatballs.”

 

“Fine.”

 

“...And cinnamon rolls.”

 

***

 

One week. That’s what she says she needs to wrap things up in London. If she needed a year, a lifetime, he’d happily wait right here for her.

 

She goes home, packs her two big suitcases, and comes back in a taxi to stay with him at the hotel for the week. “This is everything?” he asks of her suitcases.

 

“Yeah. I don’t actually _own_ much,” Rey says. “My mother tossed out a bunch of my old stuff when I was on my gap years and I sold my car when I moved back here. So this is it.”

 

She gives her workplace notice and closes her bank account and sees her shrink one last time. “How did it go?” he asks when she returns from the appointment.

 

He hands her a cold beer and she flops down on the lounge chair on their little patio and takes a long gulp. She sighs. “ _Interesting_. She’s still worried I’ll destroy you.”

 

He frowns, startled by that. “How so?” he asks.

 

“Well I’m not ‘fixed’. I’m not ‘solved’. Maybe that’s not possible. I mean, _I’m_ saying that, not her. But that’s what she was getting at. Could I destroy you? Yes. We’ll bicker and fight and get angry at each other for stupid shit, all the normal stuff, and I’ll feel insecure and scared and I need to know I can deal with that appropriately. Not lash out and punish you. In my special way.”

 

He nods, understands what she means.

 

“I need to keep working on myself so I can protect us, keep us safe. Like I keep my...my _stomach_ safe. Because, to my mind, you’re a _part_ of me, a part of my body, like my stomach. Fundamental. That’s why I’ve always called us identical twins or conjoined twins – because we’re one person. We always have been. You felt it, too.”

 

That’s true. Maybe he felt it because their lives have been intertwined in a weird way for so long, since she was a kid.

 

“So I need to keep us safe. Because I can’t live without my stomach, can I?”

 

“If I’m your stomach, then you’re my lungs,” he chokes out past the hot, hard lump in his throat, his voice rough with deep emotion.

 

She smiles at him and holds out her hand. He gets up from his chair and takes her hand, sits with her on the lounger.

 

“She gave me a referral for a new shrink in Paris. I already called for an appointment.”

 

He smiles and kisses her hand. “Do you think I should start seeing a therapist when we get home? I want to keep us safe, too.”

 

She squeezes his hand. “Well you’re writing a book about a young man who kills his father, so, yeah, maybe you should for a wee bit.”

 

He laughs at that, nods. “Good point.”

 

She smiles but it fades too soon, a cloud falling over her face. She takes a long sip of her beer.

 

“What is it, sissy?”

 

She sighs heavily. “She...she asked me to do one last thing before we leave tomorrow afternoon. _Us_ , actually. Asked _us_ to do it.”

 

He can’t even begin to guess. “What?”

 

She gives him a rueful look, grimacing. “It’s not going to be pleasant.”

 

***

 

Which is how they end up standing in the middle of her mother’s front room, holding hands tightly, Rey’s mother sitting on the sofa staring at them like they’re covered in shit and piss.

 

“Han Solo’s fucking _son_?” the older woman spits out, like the words taste bad. “Are you kidding me?”

 

Ben bristles, his blood pressure, already up, rising steadily. This woman bears a strong resemblance to Rey – facially, anyway. It’s strange, looking at her, because Rey is _so_ beautiful and this woman is nothing but ugly in his eyes, like awfulness is oozing from her pores. She’s wearing a lot of makeup and she’s dressed like a teenager and Ben’s pretty sure she’s had a boob job. He can see why silly men like his father would want her.

 

He was primed to not like this woman – from everything Rey has told him, how could he? But she’s proving to be much worse in person.

 

“I needed to be honest with you, mother,” Rey answers calmly.

 

Her mother pins Rey with a flat, cold stare. “You’re such a little whore, you know that, Rey?”

 

His vision goes red, his whole body tensing, about to leap forward and scream in this vile bitch’s face. Maybe slap her, even though he shouldn’t. Rey’s hand tightens around his, sharp, a warning, holding him back.

 

“No, mother, I’m not,” Rey answers, still so calm. “I’m not a whore or a slut or a slag. I never have been. I’m a person. I was abused and you blamed me for it. And now I’m leaving. We’re leaving.”

 

They leave. They get into their waiting town car. They head for the Eurostar. Rey cries in his arms, bitterly, the whole way to St. Pancras station. He tells her he loves her.

 

He knows her relationship with her mother will likely never be resolved or mended – just like him and his father. Those relationships have been shattered forever, he thinks.

 

But they’re off to build a life of their own now – not running away from home as the broken children of broken people, but starting off together as something new, reborn as their own person.

 

And maybe they’ll be parents one day. They’ll start a whole new family. It will be something fragile and precious and fresh like an egg and they’ll keep it safe and whole in their hands.

 

They get on the train and leave London, heading home.

 

 

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, in these last few chapters, this story strayed a wee bit from the film on which it's based. Ah well. Thanks for reading and commenting!


	11. Epilogue

He hears her keys in the front door, hears her coming in. He calls out anyway, as usual, “That you, sissy?”

“Yeah,” she calls back from the entry hall. 

He keeps grating cheese and listens to the zip of her winter coat as she takes it off and hangs it up, the thump of her winter boots as she pulls them off. He hears the slight squeak of the floorboards as she pads down the hall in her sock feet. He looks over his shoulder, sees her coming into the kitchen. 

He smiles, notices a few snowflakes on her pulled-back hair. “Is it snowing?”

“A little.” She smiles back, coming closer, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes and he can tell immediately something’s off. 

He puts down the cheese and the box grater and turns to face her. “You okay?” She smiles again, sadly, and presses herself against him, wrapping her arms around his middle and pressing her face to his chest. Now he’s worried. She gets this way occasionally. His one hand is messy from holding cheese, so he doesn’t touch her with it when his arms come around her and hold her close. “What’s wrong, love?”

“Nothing, really. What’re you making?” she asks.

“Four cheese macaroni and cheese.”

“My favorite.”

“Mmhmm.” He rubs her back with his clean hand, rubbing through her thick sweater, giving her time to answer honestly. She’ll get there.

After a minute or two, she sighs. “You know that summer internship I want to apply for? The one at the ESA?” 

“Of course.”

“My Solid Mechanics and Aerospace Structures professor, Monsieur Lanoux, he knows a program manager there, at the ESA.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. And he said he’d write me a letter of recommendation.”

“Well that’s good right?”

“Uh, sure. Yeah, he’d be happy to write me a recommendation. If I fuck him.”

He feels hot and sick all over. His messy free hand is shaking so he balls it up, his nails digging into his palm. He leans back so he can look at her. “He said that?”

She shakes her head. “Not in so many words. Not at first. Not until I pretended my French wasn’t quite good enough to follow what he was saying. Then he said it quite clearly. No mistaking it.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he growls. He’s going to fucking kill this asshole.

“Good thing I had my phone with me. Good thing I had the video camera on. Good thing he didn’t notice it sitting there on his desk.”

He stares at her. She grins a little but it fades. “You knew he’d--“

“No. But I’d heard things about him, so I came prepared. I already booked an appointment with the office of the Vice President in charge of faculty. I’ll be showing them the video tomorrow.”

He leans down and kisses her. “I love you.”

She kisses him back. “I love you, too.” She rests her head on his chest again and digs her fingers into his t-shirt, sighing, sounding tired. “But...”

“But you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to do any of that,” he finishes, still feeling the anger bubbling through his blood.

She nods against his chest. “Exactly. And of course I won’t have a chance in hell of getting that internship.”

He squeezes her shoulder, hating the defeat he hears in her voice. “You don’t know that.”

“Oh come on. Be real.”

“Okay, yeah, I get it. But but but – you can’t know it for sure, can you? You’re not a psychic, are you?”

“I don’t have to be a psychic. But I hear what you’re saying. I do.”

“And you’re still going to apply for it anyway, aren’t you?”

“Yes of course.”

“Good. And maybe you’ll get a better internship. Does JPL have an intern program? Or NASA?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then fuck the European Space Agency if they don’t pick you. You’re gonna be the head of JPL one day, so fuck ‘em.” He kisses her forehead. “You’ll like Pasadena.”

“Will you be in Pasadena?”

“Where else would I be?”

She sighs theatrically. “Okay, fine, then I’ll be head of JPL. If I have to, jeez.” She laughs then and looks up at him with bright eyes. He strokes her cheek, relieved to see her smiling. “You need any help with dinner, big bruv?”

“Nah. You go on.”

He finishes what he’s doing and gets the casserole dish into the oven and makes a salad. Then he finds her on the couch looking at her laptop. She’s changed into her favorite outfit – one of his old t-shirts and socks and nothing else. She looks so pretty in the soft, colorful glow of the twinkling Christmas tree. 

He sits next to her and she shows him what she’s looking at – the summer internship page on the JPL website. They read through it together and then she sets the computer aside and climbs onto his lap and puts his hands under her shirt and he touches her body and they kiss like that until the oven timer goes off. 

“Ignore it,” he mumbles against her mouth, his hand gently squeezing her delightful breast.

“Fuck you, I’m starving,” she says, biting his lip.

So they sit on the couch and eat all the mac and cheese and salad and drink a bottle of wine and for dessert finish off the chocolate and pear tart that was in the fridge. She loads their dishes into the dishwasher and he gets the fireplace going and retrieves his own laptop. They sit on the couch again and work side by side – him on his book, her on her schoolwork. 

Outside, the city is quiet and the snow is falling softly and it feels very far away, as far away as Pasadena, like a different world. His whole world is right here, on this orange couch.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is based, loosely, on the film Swimming Pool (dir. François Ozon, 2003).


End file.
